Currently, approximately 1,800 students are studying at the School of Education in Hiroshima University under approximately 160 faculty members. The School of Education offers courses on a wide range of fields, including early childhood, primary, secondary, higher, and further education. The School of Education at Hiroshima University celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2024. When Hiroshima University was established in 1949, the School of Education were formed as combined with five existing institutions, that is, Hiroshima Higher Normal School; Hiroshima University of Literature and Science; Hiroshima Normal School; Hiroshima Normal School for Youth School Teachers; and Hiroshima Women’s Higher Normal School. Hiroshima Higher Normal School, founded in 1902 as the second higher normal school in Japan, was known as “the headquarters of education in the western part of Japan” and produced many secondary school teachers who were leaders in local education throughout the country. During the movement to promote higher normal schools to the university level, Hiroshima University of Literature and Science was formed in 1929 by reorganizing the higher-grade course of Hiroshima Higher Normal School. It trained future secondary school teachers and became a center for research in educational studies and psychology. Hiroshima Normal School was the successor to the Hakushima School, founded in 1874 (one of the oldest primary school teacher training institutions), which had been in continuous operation for over 70 years.
After Hiroshima University was established, it continued to provide advanced teacher education. In 1978, Hiroshima University reorganized its branches to the School of School Education, which was mainly for the education of primary school teachers, in addition to the School of Education, which was for the education of researchers specializing in educational studies and carried out the education of secondary school teachers. It was unusual, even for Japan, to have two separate Schools relating the field of education. In 2000, these two Schools were integrated to form a new School of Education that cycles through educational studies covering a wide range of fields and practices related to school education and offers teacher education for all types of schools.
Hiroshima University has one of the top graduate schools in Japan offering doctoral degrees in Education. The Graduate School of Education, established in 1953, has educated many PhD students in Education since 1961 and produced many excellent researchers. Now, it offers a doctoral degree program in Education at the Division of Educational Sciences in the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences that was formed as the merger of six graduate schools of humanities and social sciences, including the Graduate School of Education, in 2020.
The current School of Education supports advanced educational research connecting various fields of the humanities and social sciences and carries out a wide range of types of teacher education. It dispatches its staff to give lectures or advice on educational activities and teacher education to government agencies and a variety of educational institutions. These activities are not limited to Japan, as it also sends researchers as lecturers or advisers to universities elsewhere in Asia and beyond. Furthermore, many of staff are engaged in research at the Educational Vision Research Institute, which was established in 2017 with the aim of conceptualizing, researching, and developing educational visions for the next generation, as well as cultivating human resources who can design them.