Relationship with Society | Expanding financial and economics education

In March 2008 we published "The Economics Classroom," an economics text for upper-grade elementary school students, and have thus far donated a total of approximately 110,000 copies to 1,200 schools across Japan at their request. Schools receive a set of textbooks for students and an instruction manual for teachers. The text follows the various real-life activities of three characters and allows students to learn about economics based on ten topics, including prices, taxes, and climate change.

"The T-Shirt Shop" was produced in 2006 as a supplementary text for junior high school social studies classes. We have donated around 200,000 copies to approximately 2,000 junior high schools across the country at their request so far. The set includes a text for students in picture book format, which explains the complicated workings of the economy and finance in simple language, and a teacher's manual that comes with worksheets and examples for exercises in class. The storyline in "The T-Shirt Shop" concerns three fictional junior high school students who start up a T-shirt business. In the course of working through the textbook, students learn about topics including company acquisitions, international trade, and corporate social responsibility. The program is structured to allow them to naturally gain an understanding of how the economy works as well as the meaning of economic and financial terms and expressions. "The T-Shirt Shop" won the Gold Prize (the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Prize) in the first "Kids Design Awards."

With the aim of providing practical knowledge to students, the future leaders of the Japanese economy, Nomura Group offers finance courses at universities all over the country. In fiscal 2007, 549 Nomura Group employees gave lectures in these courses at 129 universities. The courses, based on the lecturers' personal business experiences, attracted students' interests, and were attended by over 20,000 individuals.

In 2008 Capital Nomura Securities Public Company Limited (Bangkok) again organized a financial lecture at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. It was the sixth consecutive year the lecture had been held since it was launched in 2003.

In September, October and November 2007, Nomura International (Hong Kong) Limited (NIHK) hosted a three-part series of financial lectures at the College of Economics of the Vietnam National University and the Foreign Trade University. NIHK offered scholarships, equivalent to a full year's tuition fees, to students in the two universities who have achieved academic excellence during the course.

Nomura Securities Co., Ltd. and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun jointly sponsor the economics educational website "man@bow" as a means of offering financial seminars to a broad range of people to heighten their interest and understanding of finance and the economy. The site's content is not limited to the economy and investing, but also has easy-to-understand commentary on current topics and market trends. Individual investors can use the site as a tool for learning about asset management.

• man@bow Website (Only available in Japanese)

The Nikkei Stock League is a contest for junior high school, high school and university students organized by the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, in which students create their own investment portfolios and performance reports.
The event was held for the eighth time this past year, and Nomura Group has been a special supporter since the outset. Some 2,113 teams from schools nationwide were represented in the 8th Annual Nikkei Stock League Contest, with 8,403 students participating.
Participating teams establish portfolio objectives, and conduct simulated investments in a number of companies according to their objectives. They also write reports about what they have learned in the process of participating. While students learn about economics and investing through this program, it also requires the students' teamwork and imagination. In 2007 many Nomura Group employees participated in the preliminary judging of the students' reports.

• Nikkei Stock League Website (Only available in Japanese)

We co-sponsored this educational publication on financial literacy primarily for elementary school pupils. It describes the roles of money, banks and securities companies in a simple, comic book style. Copies were donated to 24,000 elementary schools and 2,400 public libraries nationwide in April 2003.

In February 2005, we prepared and donated copies of "Finance for Beginners" to 11,000 junior high schools and 2,400 public libraries across the nation. The book features a qualified financial planner as she explains in simple terms to junior high school students in her neighborhood how financial and economic mechanisms work.

Women of all ages have become increasingly interested in investing and asset management. In November 2004, Nomura Securities established a Woman Financial Planning Team to provide information specifically geared for women, and in May 2005 Toyo Keizai Inc. published a Japanese translation of "A Woman's Guide to Investing", the famous tutorial written for American women about how to deal with money issues and build a long-term financial plan. Nomura hopes that a large number of women will make good use of this resource in increasing their financial literacy, and take the first step towards a better financial future.

We have been broadcasting this program on the importance of asset management on over 160 cable TV stations across Japan since its launch in April 2001.