Three Sites, One Common Blueprint

In a junior high school in Higashihiroshima City, the leaders of club activities are transitioning from being “school teachers” to “local residents.” In agricultural fields in Iwakuni City, high school students are holding drone controllers. In a hall in Hiroshima City, recruitment officers from eight competing bus companies are sitting at the same table, waiting for job seekers.

When we line up these three seemingly disparate events, a common question emerges: it’s not that “there aren’t enough people,” but rather that “the pipelines for reaching people are clogged.” Each site is beginning to step away from relying solely on individual efforts and is starting to reconstruct the systems themselves.

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Regional Transition of Club Activities — An Attempt to Deconstruct “What Teachers Do”

The regional transition of club activities, which the Higashihiroshima City Board of Education will begin trialing in August 2024, is a local version of the nationwide reform of the system. Since the Japan Sports Agency indicated a phased plan to transfer weekend club activities to local communities starting in the 2023 fiscal year, various municipalities have been exploring specific measures. Higashihiroshima City stands out for its early involvement of local sports clubs and companies as “receivers.”

The background of this trial is the long working hours of teachers. According to a 2022 survey by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, about 36% of junior high school teachers exceeded 80 hours of overtime per month — the so-called “karoshi line.” Although club activity guidance is considered outside of official duties, teachers have effectively continued to bear this responsibility. In other words, there has been an implicit pipeline that assumes, “This is something teachers do.”

In the Higashihiroshima trial, local sports instructors and corporate employees will participate as external coaches. The transition will initially focus on weekend activities at several junior high schools in the city. The remuneration for instructors is set at several thousand yen per session, and ensuring the sustainability of funding will be a future challenge. Nevertheless, introducing a third pipeline in a situation where the only options were “either teachers or disbanding” is not insignificant.

There are also changes for students. By engaging in activities at the community level rather than just at the school level, opportunities arise for students from different schools to practice together on the same team. This addresses the most pressing issue for schools that can no longer form independent teams due to declining birth rates: “How can we continue club activities?”

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Smart Agriculture Experience — Drones Rewrite the Narrative of “Hard, Dirty, and Uncool”

The smart agriculture experience program for high school students implemented in Iwakuni City represents another pipeline addressing the shortage of agricultural workers. According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the average age of core agricultural workers is 68.4 years (2023). This figure has increased by about five years compared to a decade ago. This indicates a time-sensitive structural problem: “In ten years, the number of people who can stand in the field will drastically decrease.”

In the experience program, high school students actually operated technologies such as drone pesticide spraying, real-time management of soil moisture and temperature using field sensors, and data analysis for yield prediction. Unlike traditional agricultural experiences that often concluded with “rice planting and harvesting,” this program starts with technology.

One participating high school student reportedly said, “I didn’t know agriculture could be managed with a smartphone.” This statement encapsulates a moment of rewriting the traditional image of agriculture — a test of physical strength, relying on experience and intuition, from early morning until sunset. Of course, introducing smart agriculture requires initial investments ranging from 500,000 to 2 million yen for a single drone, and several tens of thousands of yen for establishing sensor systems. This burden is heavy for individual farmers. Hence, there is a need for systems that allow municipalities and agricultural cooperatives to share equipment, or for scaling up through incorporation — another form of “pipeline.”

High school students who develop an interest through the experience will not immediately start farming. However, creating a state where “agriculture is an option” is itself a process of widening the pipeline’s diameter. The first step is to physically create a pipeline where people can flow through. Whether water will flow through it later depends on the environmental improvements made by the receiving side.

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Joint Bus Driver Recruitment Fair — A Shift to “Selling the Industry as a Whole” by Eight Competing Companies

Eight bus companies operating in Hiroshima City held a joint recruitment fair for bus drivers. The very format of this “joint” event is a departure from traditional hiring practices. Bus companies are in competition in overlapping route sections. Nevertheless, the shortage of drivers has become so severe that a single company cannot attract job seekers on its own.

According to materials from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the effective job opening-to-applicant ratio for bus drivers is about twice the average for all industries. The 2024 issue — the limit on overtime work for truck drivers — has intensified the competition for talent with the logistics industry. Monthly salaries ranging from 250,000 to 300,000 yen are often compared to the salary ranges of truck drivers, who also require large vehicle licenses, putting the bus industry at a disadvantage.

What is intriguing about the design of the joint recruitment fair is the shift from the message “Please come to our company” to “Please come to this industry.” While each company presents its own labor conditions, they collectively promote the support system for obtaining a large second-class license aimed at inexperienced candidates as a common selling point for the industry. The cost of obtaining a license typically ranges from 300,000 to 400,000 yen, but several companies have prepared programs to support this cost through company funding.

This strategy is not about competing for a slice of the pie, but rather about expanding the pie itself. Even if one company succeeds in hiring, if a neighboring route reduces its service, the entire regional transportation network suffers. By accepting the contradiction of being competitors while coexisting, the decision was made to “first widen the pipeline to attract people to the industry.”

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Common Structure Across the Three Sites — Construction to Change the “Delivery Point”

When we line up these three initiatives, a common design philosophy emerges.

First, they are questioning the premise of “who does it.” Club activities are for teachers, agriculture is for the heirs of farmers, and bus driving is for experienced individuals — in each field, there has been a fixed implicit “delivery point.” When that pipeline narrowed, they began the construction to change the delivery point. To local instructors, to young people interested in technology, to career changers from different industries. Changing the delivery point changes who can reach it.

Second, they are operating on a “plane” rather than optimizing individually. Instead of focusing on club activities at one school, they are designing a system for the entire city. Instead of just one farmer’s successor, they are creating a regional agricultural experience program. Instead of a single company’s job offer, they are holding a joint industry recruitment fair with eight companies. By bundling individual efforts into a collective, they create something that can truly be called a “system.”

Third, none of them are “complete.” The regional transition of club activities is still in the trial phase, and the remuneration system for instructors has not been established. The smart agriculture experience has only shown the entry point, and the pathway to becoming a farmer is not yet developed. The joint recruitment fair will not resolve the shortage of drivers with just one event. All of them are at the stage of having “passed through the pipeline” but are not yet at the stage where “water is flowing steadily.”

That is why it is significant that these three initiatives are moving simultaneously. The blueprint of a system tested in one field can be repurposed in another. The concept of a joint recruitment fair may also be applicable to attracting agricultural workers. The external coaching system for club activities could become a circuit for local companies to utilize as a training ground. The design blueprint for pipelines should be shared across fields.

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What to Watch Moving Forward

The future focus will be on the operational costs and sustainability after “passing through the pipeline.” Who will continue to bear the costs for remuneration to external instructors? At what level will sharing smart agriculture equipment be profitable? How many times a year should the joint recruitment fair be held to raise the overall hiring numbers in the industry?

Systems are most beautiful at the moment they are created. However, what truly matters is whether water continues to flow through that pipeline three or five years from now. Even if the names of those who drew the blueprints are forgotten, water will flow when the faucet is turned — creating that state is the true meaning of the phrase “securing human resources” in the community.

In three different sites, at the same season, the same type of construction has begun. The pipelines are still exposed, with a little water leaking from the connections. Nevertheless, the fact that the pipelines have been established remains.