A Chronological Approach to Tourism Education Curriculums in Japanese High Schools

DOI Web Site

Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • 高等学校における観光教育カリキュラムの比較分析
  • コウトウ ガッコウ ニ オケル カンコウ キョウイク カリキュラム ノ ヒカク ブンセキ

Search this article

Abstract

This study analyzes the curriculums of tourism education in Japanese high schools in order to discuss a new framework for the curriculum. We also examined the chronological changes of the curriculum contents of tourism education from the beginning to the present day. Since tourism education in the high school is not defined by the National Curriculum Standard (NCS) offered by the Ministry of Education, the contents are significantly restricted not only by the current regular curriculums taught by the teachers' professionalism, but also by the licensing system for the high school teacher. The NCS in 2003 and the recent reforming of the education system have so affected tourism education that the qualitative enrichment with locality characteristics in the curriculums has been realized as well as the increasing for tourism education opportunity. Historically, tourism education has been prepared as a kind of a vocational education in Japan. A new concept, in which tourism education should activate local lives and economy while sharing a regionalism and a viewpoint of local citizenship, has emerged in the actual education field. In addition to the conventional vocation education consisting of three factors such as; fundamental lessons, applying the lessons to harder problems, and turning the lessons into practice, the new curriculum provides tourism training for students as an elective subject. While increasing these flexibilities in the high school curriculums, the opportunity to invite a tourism expert as a lecturer from outside or to take the course of internship in a hotel or in a travelling agency has decreased. On the other hand, the increase of teaching opportunities for tourism lessons by the individual high school teacher of social science, history, geography, or of civics has shown a characteristic trend for the recent tourism education. We have still noticed that some teachers or some members of the Board of Education in the local government recognize that tourism is a kind of "travel for sightseeing", so that they think tourism education should be conducted as a vocational education. We conclude that it is necessary to intensively involve the regional universities and local community in order to enrich and to deepen the contents of the tourism education curriculum, because the current curriculum framework looks like diversification without critical review of the tourism education system from the beginning to the updated curriculum involving the locality culture.

Journal

Related Projects

See more

Keywords

Details 詳細情報について

Report a problem

Back to top