ABSTRACT
Japanese formal education has long been lauded abroad for its rigorous, well structured curriculum, and corroborated by high scores on the programme for international student assessment standardised global science and mathematics tests. Environmental education was first instituted in the late 1960s and early 1970s in public schools in Japan to teach students about pollution. The Japanese government became a major proponent of the United Nations Decade of education for sustainable development (ESD) underlining its commitment to ESD by providing both funding and programme. ESD was included as a cornerstone of Japan's Basic Plan on Education, a revised national educational policy promulgated in 2008, as well as a revised policy, the 2013 Basic Plan for the Promotion of Education. ESD implementation in curricula or student-led initiatives at Japanese universities have lagged behind what can be found in primary and secondary schools and in universities in many other developed nations, but sustainability-linked research and green campus efforts are expanding.
