Japan is joining the shift to electronic textbooks, approving digital technology-based materials as official school textbooks, which until now have been limited to print publications.

The policy direction was outlined on Sept. 24 by a working group of the Central Council for Education, an advisory panel to the education minister, in a summary of roughly one year of deliberations.

In response, the education ministry will begin working out the details.

Until now, digital resources have been treated as “teaching materials” supplementing print textbooks.

Once designated as official textbooks, they will be provided free of charge to elementary and junior high school students. They will also be subject to textbook screening by government inspectors.

The education ministry plans to revise the relevant laws next year and draw up guidelines on publication and usage by March 2027.

Digital textbooks are expected to be introduced in schools in line with the next revision of the national curriculum guidelines scheduled for fiscal 2030, at the earliest.

The advancement of digital infrastructure in schools, including internet connectivity, is among the factors behind the move to introduce digital textbooks.

For example, nearly all elementary and junior high schools had distributed one tablet device per student by the end of fiscal 2022.

Current digital teaching materials already include supplemental features, such as text enlargement, audio read-aloud and phonetic guides.

However, the content of those materials is little more than electronic versions of printed textbooks.

The council’s working group and the education ministry aim to enrich educational content by incorporating elements unique to digital media.

Examples include presenting English vocabulary with audio and video; letting students input programming code and observe simple operations; and animating geometric figures in arithmetic and mathematics.

That said, many details have yet to be discussed, and the exact format of digital textbooks remains unclear.

While textbooks composed entirely of digital content may be produced, the education ministry expects that hybrid models combining digital and printed materials will be more popular due to constraints such as production costs.

“The balance and combination of paper and digital formats will be left up to textbook publishers,” a ministry official said. “We want to increase flexibility so that they can apply creativity and innovation.”

Possible approaches include scanning QR codes in printed textbooks with tablet devices to access digital materials, dividing content by unit between paper and digital formats, and installing apps on devices to view digital materials alongside paper textbooks.

Currently, printed textbooks include QR codes linking to digital materials. However, since they are not subject to government textbook screening, their content varies widely.

Going forward, digital materials accessed via QR codes in textbooks will be subject to screening. The council’s working group and the education ministry intend to carefully select these materials in terms of quality and quantity.

As digital components increase, the volume of information may expand significantly. It is also possible that they will be updated on an ongoing basis to incorporate the latest information.

Accordingly, the government textbook screening process itself will be reviewed in expert meetings.

Likely topics for discussion include whether the current once-every-four-years screening cycle is appropriate and whether standards should be set for the length of video content.

Textbooks for elementary and junior high schools provided free of charge are produced within a price ceiling predetermined by the government.

As digital components increase, production costs are expected to rise, and maintenance and operational costs will also likely be incurred. Appropriate pricing needs to be discussed.

Some observers believe that large publishers with ample funding and personnel will have an advantage in creating digital textbooks.

If only a few companies produce these textbooks, schools will have limited options, which could lead to a loss of diversity in textbooks.

Consideration must also be given to children’s developmental stages and the characteristics of each subject. Some experts said, for example, that younger students may benefit more from learning with print textbooks.

The education ministry plans to present guidelines that illustrate which situations are best suited for digital textbooks based on grade level and subject.