As living and media environments are changing, child is changing. The competency acquired at school and the competency that children are using from the influence of media etc. out of school are intricately entangled, and the influence of this is beginning to show in school efforts to improve students' academic skills. This paper details Japan's national projects designed to improve students' scholastic ability ('Scholastic Ability Improvement Project Targeting Frontier Schools,' 'Scholastic Ability Improvement Project Targeting Base Schools' and 'Scholastic Ability Improvement Field Research Project' which have been carried out under the leadership of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology). These projects have been undertaken over three designated terms since the Fiscal 2002 with one of them currently being underway. In order to identify the current challenges, this paper analyzes the issues that have been occasionally faced by the participating schools and the changes to schools' focal points when carrying out the necessary measures. To be more specific, this paper aims to reveal the present issues faced by schools that have been endeavoring to improve students' scholastic ability over the last nine years. Then, under these changing circumstances, this paper attempts to suggest how teachers should also turn to competency acquired out of school and examine the content and method of considering the acquisition of competency required at school.
