The education ministry will strengthen safety education at universities with teacher-training courses in order to raise awareness of disaster response and crime prevention among students aiming to be teachers, according to sources.
In its budget request for fiscal 2014, the ministry plans to include some ¥10 million for considering classes on safety education, the sources said.
“All teachers need to have the minimum knowledge about safety education,” a ministry official said.
The ministry hopes to make safety education a required subject in teacher-training courses in the future by revising the ordinance for enforcing the law on teachers’ licenses, the sources said.
The importance of school education on disaster responses, such as evacuation in the event of tsunami, has attracted growing attention since the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
There have also been an increasing number of cases in which students are involved in crime and traffic accidents on their way to and from school.