November 26, 2025
Japan Fair Trade Commission
Public Outreach Activities Through School Education
Today, I would like to talk about the JFTC’s initiatives for public outreach activities through school education.
The JFTC organizes the Antimonopoly Act Class for students who are expected to play key roles in future economic activities. For this program, the JFTC dispatches its officials as lecturers to schools that request it, providing lessons to help students understand the significance and necessity of competition, the contents of the Antimonopoly Act, and the role of the JFTC.
To give you a brief overview of the class content, for example, sessions for junior high and high school students are designed to help them understand the importance of competition through “simulation games.” In addition, mock on-site inspections and mock interviews are incorporated to spark interest in the work of the JFTC.
For university students, the Antimonopoly Act Class offers more specialized sessions, taking into account the intentions of university professors. These sessions include examining key issues using case studies of Antimonopoly Act violations and exploring competition policy concepts based on the findings of market studies.
Students who have participated in the Antimonopoly Act Class have provided positive feedback, such as “I gained a deeper understanding of how the market economy works and competition among enterprises” and “My interest in the activities of the JFTC has increased.”
As of the end of October in fiscal year 2025, the Antimonopoly Act Class has been held at 6 junior high schools, 17 high schools, and 68 universities and other higher education institutions. Many of these sessions have been conducted at universities that offer programs in law or in fields such as industrial organization, which serves as the theoretical foundation of competition policy.
While it is certainly important for university students majoring in law or economics to deepen their operational understanding of the Antimonopoly Act, it is just as important to promote broader public understanding of the importance of maintaining a competitive environment and the necessity of Antimonopoly Act regulations. For this reason, we intend to further enhance our efforts to hold the Antimonopoly Act Class at junior high and high schools. The JFTC accepts requests for the program at any time, and we hope that educators—particularly teachers at junior high and high schools—will learn about this initiative and make use of it within school education as an engaging opportunity for students to understand the concepts of the market economy and the Antimonopoly Act.
In addition, as part of the Antimonopoly Act Class, we have recently begun offering outreach sessions for vocational school students who are expected to play active roles as freelancers in the future. These sessions focus on explaining the Freelance Act, which was enforced in November last year. Since legal knowledge is beneficial for protecting one’s position when working as a freelancer, we hope that the Antimonopoly Act Class will also be utilized from this new perspective.
The Antimonopoly Act Class is sometimes open to press coverage. While we would appreciate the opportunity to introduce the JFTC’s initiatives, we also believe that it provides a valuable opportunity for the media to gain insight into the efforts of schools that are striving to enhance their educational activities as society becomes increasingly complex and the knowledge and skills required of students continue to evolve. We therefore encourage media representatives to take an active interest in covering these sessions.
If you are interested, please feel free to contact the Secretariat’s General Affairs Division or any of our Local Offices.
（Tentative translation）
