2019.01.20

Vice President Attended the Annual Meeting of the IOC Education Commission

The Annual Meeting of the IOC Education Commission was held in Lausanne, Switzerland on January 20, 2019. Vice President Caroline F. Benton attended the meeting as a member and was invited to speak about the Olympic education activities of the University of Tsukuba. The presentation entitled “University of Tsukuba’s Innovative Pedagogical Lab for Youth ” highlighted the characteristics of our Olympic education activities, including building on our legacy, the all Japan nature of the activities, and bringing together the values of the IOC, Japan and our university.

The activities of the university were well-received and deemed “brilliant” by Mr. Barry Maister, the chair of the commission. In particular, the commission members highly evaluated the educational activities that led to the election of mascots for the Olympic and Paralympic Games by school children.

The commission members were surprised also that the University of Tsukuba has able to put so much effort on Olympic education. Professor Benton replied that Jigoro Kano headed the Tokyo Normal School, a predecessor of our university, for over 20 years and that Olympic education is our legacy. Furthermore, Olympic educational activities support the mission of our university which it so to develop global human resources that can contribute to the resolution of the global issues that society faces today.