Most schools have fundamentally the same curriculum established by the Ministry of Education. At the present time, individual schools have little flexibility within the national guidelines. There is a distinction between economics education and teaching economics. Economics education is thought of as a 50-minute period devoted to the teaching of economics. In contrast, teaching economics is an integration of economics into other subjects.
Japanese education is focused on the latter.
Economics is not taught as a specific subject. It is integrated within other topics of the social science curriculum. A Japanese elementary school classroom associated with Fukushima University, Fukushima, Japan. The teaching of economics begins in third grade with an emphasis on the economics of the city or town where students live. As the students advance to higher grades the topics and the economics learning activities change.