Digital textbooks to be fully OK’d for visually impaired, other students

January 21, 2018

Tokyo- The Japanese education ministry plans to allow the use of digital textbooks for the whole of study procedures at elementary, junior high and high schools by visually impaired and other students having difficulties learning by conventional paper textbooks, Jiji Press learned Saturday.

The ministry will submit bills to revise related laws, including the school education act, to the ordinary session of the Diet, Japan's parliament, set to start on Monday, informed sources said. It aims to put the revised laws into force in April 2019, the sources said.

The ministry is considering introducing digital textbooks in earnest, including through tablet computers, in fiscal 2020, when the country is set to fully start using new school curriculum guidelines.

Under the current laws, elementary, junior high and high schools are allowed to use only paper textbooks for their students. The law revision is designed to allow the combined use of paper and digital textbooks.

Students who have difficulties learning by paper textbooks, including those with visual impairments and developmental disorders, and thus need to use large fonts or text-to-speech functions to reduce their burdens will be able to use digital textbooks in all study procedures at school, the sources said.

Furthermore, the use of digital versions of teaching materials other than textbooks allowed at special-needs schools and other similar educational institutions will be made possible, according to the sources.

Meanwhile, students without disabilities will continue to use printed textbooks while being allowed to use digital ones as a substitute for part of their studies.

In addition, the use of copyrighted works in digital textbooks without rights holders' permissions would be authorized, the same treatment as for paper textbooks, according to the sources.

To realize this, a bill to revise the copyright law will also be submitted to the Diet to oblige textbook publishers to pay an amount of compensation, to be set by the commissioner of the Cultural Affairs Agency, to copyright holders for the use of their works in digital textbooks, the sources said. Jiji Press