Naruto University of Education (Naruto, Tokushima)

 university  Add category

 Upload a photo

Naruto University of Education is a university for teachers and one open to the public, which was founded in October 1981 as a University for Teacher Education with New Ideas. It is still a relatively new university with the 30th anniversary coming next year. In April 2004 the university was reestablished as a national university cooperation, and from April 2010 it has embarked on the second six-year term with a new mid-term plan and goals set.

With the following mission statement in the preamble of the current mid-term plan, the university has clearly set forth its unique functionally specialized role:

“Under the idea that education is a foundation for a country, Naruto University of Education, as a university for teacher training in response to the needs of the times, has set forth as its foremost goal, training of teachers as high-level professionals who possess a high level of teaching professionalism and teaching-practice abilities, and human love. In addition to that, the university will be actively engaged in advanced and practical research in school education to play a leading role in teacher education in our country.”

Under the current mid-term plan, the university is developing its unique identity as a teacher-training university. And, being located in Naruto, where Ryouzanji-temple, the starting point in Shikoku 88-temple pilgrimage is, the university refers to itself as “The Starting Point of the Pilgrimage of Education”. As such, the university is trying to lead the country in teacher education.

Although our university is a rather small-scale institution for teacher education, we are confident that our faculty is made up of a highly capable staff, being second to none in teaching and research. As a merit of a small-scale institution, our university is such that the students can receive close attention from faculty members in their studies and research. The success of education is heavily dependent on the mutual trust between students and teachers—“There is no education without the relationship of mutual trust.” I think that education is a discipline with human relationships at its base. With this in mind, we would like to aim at Evidence-Based Education in the interaction of the theory of teaching and the body of knowledge gained through experience and practice of teaching at schools, to meet the needs of students and schools.

I believe the survival of the human race best depends on education. Human beings have evolved and developed by means of education. It is no exaggeration to say that the device of education controls the fate of human kind. In this sense, Naruto University of Education has an important place in the great project of the device called “Education”, which has been created and developed by human beings ever since they acquired language. I am proud of this fact. We will squarely work on this grand project and create a new tradition in the discipline of teacher education.

www.naruto-u.ac.jp/english/