The academic exchange activities and visits of organizations of education for the elderly and adults in Japan

The director of our department, Ai-Tzu Li (Iris), other five teachers and two postdoctoral researchers altogether visited Tokyo and Sendai cities in Japan from 1st to 18th of April in 2019, to have better understanding of the education for the elderly and the adaption for the aged society in Japan and to learn its practical experiences and related policies for the aged society. They learned the promoting methods and results of the adults and the education for the elderly in Japan, and also provided our current situations of adults and the education for the elderly in Taiwan through exchanging ideas.

During the trip, they visited the Sendai Finland Wellbeing Center, the Smart Aging Center of Tohoku University, the Medical Center for Dementia DiseaseMedical Center of Sendai Nishitaga Hospital, the Lifelong Learning College at Nagoya, Tokyo, the New Zone Community at Kanagawa, Yokohama city, the Adult schools of Suginami City Tokyo and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Also, they participated in nine important events, including the Tohoku University Forum held by its Education College, and the exchange platform conference of social resources of the 100-Year Life in the University of Tokyo. Their fruitful trip was reported by Japanese media. 

The biggest achievement of the visit was that they learned people of different ages in the business sector would regularly return schools to receive education, in order to adapt its aged society and long-life age in Japan; the academic sector connects residents and their communities and increases the care for their living areas through lifelong education. Its industry, academia and research sectors have started working together to create the perfect recurrent education and re-employment environment for the coming hundred-year-old society.

When looking back, we Taiwan should learn from Japan’s experiences to actively plan for the elderly to return schools for receiving different recurrent education and to create perfect recurrent education and a friendly re-employment environment, in order to adapt the coming super-aged society in the future.