CASTALIA AND NPO JOIN FORCES TO PROVIDE MOBILE-LEARNING-BASED EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT FOR BRAZILLIAN STUDENTS IN JAPAN

App-based study of 10 subjects / approx. 700 questions of past ENEMs

For the Portuguese press release, click...here
For the PDF version of the English press release, click...here

 

Castalia Co., Ltd. (registered main office: Nagano, Japan / headquarters: Tokyo, Japan / CEO: Satoshi Yamawaki / hereinafter “Castalia”) will join forces with NPO Serviço de Assistencia aos Brasileiros no Japão (SABJA) (Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan / Chairman: Shinji Mogi / hereinafter “SABJA”) to provide a smartphone-based educational support for students at Brazilian schools in Japan who prepare for ENEM, Brazil’s national academic certification examination for secondary education, starting January 18.

 

[About ENEM]
ENEM (Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio) was introduced by the Brazilian government in 2009 to measure the academic achievement level in secondary education. Results of ENEM are used upon designating the passing status, selecting scholarship recipients, etc., along with the exams conducted independently by each university in Brazil. This project will take place from January thru September 2016; by using “Goocus” (http://gooc.us/), the learning platform developed by Castalia, students will learn materials of the challenge level required by the entrance examinations at universities in Brazil, using smartphones and other devices.

 

[Problems to be solved]
There are 170,000 Brazilians living in Japan, which account for the fourth largest foreign national group. 39 Brazilian schools in Japan, where many Brazilian children attend, provide education in Portuguese, their native language. Some students aim to proceed to universities in Brazil after high school, however, reality is that the current education is not sufficient for the entrance examination, and there are not many supplementary methods.
In this project, Castalia will take care of the technological matters as well as the creation of the contents, whereas SABJA will provide support to the schools and the students. Three schools will join the project at time of launch. Goocus, the learning platform for the project, is equipped with a user interface available in five languages including Portuguese, and its usability is student-friendly.

 
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(Studying ENEM on Goocus, a mobile learning platform)


 

Castalia provides a mobile learning service that is rooted in the students’ daily lives and help them not drop out of their learning process, by accumulating and utilizing the students’ learning data such as the starting time and achievement degree. In this project, Castalia will make use of one of Goocus’ main features: the social function. By having each student study not on his or her own but with other students in and out of school through the use of the application, Castalia will encourage the students maintain their motivation towards studying, and through continuous studying, guide them to their academic improvement. At the same time, Castalia will also implement Goocus in the existing classes at schools, analyze the students’ learning history to research on the method to provide an optimal learning experience.

 

[Comment from the Ambassador of Brazil to Japan]
Upon launch of this project, H.E. Mr. André Corrêa do Lago, Ambassador of Brazil to Japan, commented:
“It was with great satisfaction that the Embassy of Brazil heard about the cooperation between SABJA and Castalia for providing free Goocus to students from Brazilian schools in Japan. By bringing the students closer to the brazilian educational system, preparing them to ENEM, the project complies with a prior demand within Brazilian community. At the same time, it brings out a possibility of greater interation between students from different schools”.

 

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H. E. Mr. André Corrêa do Lago, Ambassador of Brazil (right) / Satoshi Yamawaki, CEO, Castalia Co., Ltd. (left)


 

[About Goocus]
Goocus is the mobile learning platform developed by Castalia. The principal axis of its development is on the “continuity of learning” mainly on smartphones. In pursuit of “social learning”, the “visualization of learning”, and “gamification”, we research on how to make the learning experience a day-to-day process.

[About SABJA]
◼︎ SABJA (Serviço de Assistencia aos Brasileiros no Japão)
SABJA is a non-profit organization aimed for the support of foreign nationals adapting to the Japanese society, the assistance for the solution of day-to-day issues, and for the creation of the environment for the children to blossom their dreams and gifts. By sending out information at domestic and international symposiums they participate, and through consultations with regards to medical, legal, and day-to-day issues, as well as through home visits and workshops, SABJA reaches out to the Brazilians in Japan, hoping to contribute to the shaping of their individual and cultural identities.

[About Castalia Co., Ltd.]
Castalia Co., Ltd. is a company that reinvents learning under the slogan of “find solutions to social problems with the fusion of education and IT”. We develop mobile learning platform “Goocus” and supply it to corporations and educational institutions. In addition, we collaborate with Shingakukai, an educational conglomerate that operates mainly in Nagano Prefecture, for the curriculum design at Code Academy High School ( http://code.ac.jp ), Japan’s first extensive correspondence high school that sets programming (coding) as mandatory subject.