Japan plans rules for digital textbooks

Japan is getting ready for a new kind of school textbook. From the 2030 school year, textbooks in Japan can have digital^*1 parts, not only paper pages. On September 2, 2026, the Ministry^*2 of Education, the part of the Japanese government in charge of schools, showed a draft^*3 plan for these textbooks. A group of experts at the ministry checks every textbook before schools can use it. The draft plan says what kind of digital content is good for a textbook and what kind is not allowed.

Some digital content is welcome. For example, a textbook can have a simulation^*4. Students can move shapes and graphs on the screen and see how they change. Videos that help students learn a skill are also fine.

Other content will not be allowed. Games and comics that are mostly for fun and do not help students understand the subject are out. So are very large sets of data^*5, and long lists of practice questions that students do again and again, or questions for entrance exams^*6. A textbook also cannot include an encyclopedia^*7 that lists every animal or every material. And it cannot have lecture^*8 videos that take the place of the class itself.

The plan also looks at the amount of video. Today's paper textbooks have QR codes^*9 that link to videos. In some cases, one code leads to more than five hours of video. The ministry says this is a problem, and videos need to be chosen more carefully. So the draft plan says there will be a limit on the total hours of video in each kind of textbook. The limit will depend on the subject. In some subjects, video is a good way to teach skills. In some, students learn by watching and doing experiments^*10. In some, video helps students speak and listen. Other subjects are different. Each of these groups will get its own limit.

One more rule is in the plan. Textbooks will not be allowed to have links to outside websites or to learning materials that are not textbooks.

The plan is still a draft. It will become part of the rules for checking the new textbooks that schools will use from 2030.

1. *1 digital: on a computer or screen, not on paper
2. *2 Ministry: a part of a government that takes care of one area, like schools
3. *3 draft: a first version of a plan, which can still change
4. *4 simulation: a computer program that shows how something works, and lets you change it and watch
5. *5 data: facts and numbers kept on a computer
6. *6 entrance exams: tests that students take to get into a school or university
7. *7 encyclopedia: a very big book or list that gives facts about every kind of thing
8. *8 lecture: a long talk by a teacher that explains a subject
9. *9 QR codes: small black-and-white squares that a phone can read to open a web page
10. *10 experiments: tests that students do in science class to see what happens