What Is the EDGE-PRIME Initiative? MEXT's Entrepreneurship Education Program for Elementary Through High School Students, Explained

This is Hamamoto from TIMEWELL.

The EDGE-PRIME Initiative is the core program for entrepreneurship education that Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has been promoting since FY2023, targeting students from elementary school through high school and technical colleges. MEXT defines entrepreneurship education as "education to acquire the knowledge, abilities, and attitudes needed to take on challenges toward solving problems and to explore solutions in collaboration with others"¹ — which is quite different from a class that teaches the mechanics of founding a company. In this article, I trace what EDGE-PRIME contains and where it came from, its lineage from the earlier EDGE and EDGE-NEXT programs, what actually happened at its kickoff and national forum, the support measures schools can use right away, and how it connects to the N-E.X.T. High School Vision and inquiry-based learning — all grounded solely in primary sources from MEXT and the implementing organizations.

Why would a company whose core business is hands-on AI support write about this policy? Because when I talk with high schools and boards of education, I keep hearing the same thing: "We want to work on entrepreneurship education, but we cannot tell where the national support actually is." Three key points up front.

• EDGE-PRIME is the point where a lineage that began in FY2014 with the university-focused EDGE program finally reached elementary and secondary classrooms, roughly a decade later. The Startup Development Five-Year Plan adopted in November 2022 is its direct backdrop.
• Schools already have several entry points. Ambassador dispatches can be requested directly by schools, and the SME Support Japan entrepreneurship program offers a standard curriculum and outside instructors free of charge.
• Entrepreneurship education is not an extra job separate from inquiry-based learning. It overlaps heavily with the goals of the inquiry period, and it is being built into the N-E.X.T. High School Vision and new Super Science High School categories.

What the EDGE-PRIME Initiative is: MEXT's core program for bringing entrepreneurship education to schools

Let me start by sorting out the name. The EDGE-PRIME Initiative is one of MEXT's startup support measures, listed on the official page with the subtitle "measures to expand entrepreneurship education for high school students and others"². The feature article in the May 2024 issue of MEXT's bulletin for boards of education explains it this way: "Aiming for children to feel that taking on challenges is familiar and to be able to act proactively, MEXT has promoted 'EDGE-PRIME Initiative' as its core program since FY2023"¹.

The target range runs from elementary schoolers to high school and technical college students. The programs are not uniform. According to the same feature, "programs at various levels — from basic ones that think about familiar social issues to high-level ones such as presenting business ideas overseas — have been held in person and online"¹. In other words, this is less a program that selects and drills future founders than one that tries to deliver the experience of challenge and collaboration to as many children as possible. Broadening the base is the point.

It is worth pausing on the definition I quoted at the top. Nowhere does it mention how to incorporate a company or raise funding. I am genuinely fond of this definition, and when I explain it to teachers I rephrase it as "education in stepping forward, not a class on starting a business." It is not about producing more people with the job title of founder; it is about a capacity every student needs, whatever path they choose. Mix this up, and adoption at academically focused schools will stumble every time.

Behind it sits a government-wide movement. In November 2022, the government adopted the Startup Development Five-Year Plan. Within that plan, MEXT is responsible for "creating a startup ecosystem environment based on the excellent research outcomes of universities and other institutions"², and EDGE-PRIME is the pillar that extends the talent side of that mission down into elementary and secondary education. The kickoff event was held on June 3, 2023 at CIC Tokyo. Parliamentary Vice-Minister of Education Sakon Yamamoto and six Entrepreneurship Education Promotion Ambassadors attended, with more than 150 people at the venue and over 250 online. Eleven presenters, from high schoolers to young entrepreneurs, gave three-minute pitches on their dreams and learning, alongside practice showcases and networking by educators from elementary school through university³. One participant remarked on how inspiring it was "to see high schoolers of my own generation presenting with such confidence"³. That the stars of a national program's kickoff were high schoolers giving pitches tells you a great deal about its character.

As an aside: what EDGE-PRIME actually stands for is nowhere spelled out in the MEXT pages and documents I reviewed. The original EDGE is publicly documented as short for Enhancing Development of Global Entrepreneur Program⁴, so the name clearly carries that lineage. My policy is not to assert what I cannot confirm, so I will simply state that honestly.

From EDGE to EDGE-NEXT: a university program that took a decade to reach the classroom

The fastest way to understand EDGE-PRIME is to trace its lineage. MEXT's support for entrepreneurship education is now in its third generation, counting from the EDGE program launched in FY2014. Put the three side by side, and one trend is unmistakable: the target age has kept falling.

Program	Period	Main target	Content
EDGE (Enhancing Development of Global Entrepreneur Program)	FY2014-2016	Graduate students, young researchers	Developing people to launch ventures and new businesses from university research45
EDGE-NEXT (Next-Generation Entrepreneur Development Program)	FY2017-2021	University and graduate students	Five university consortia selected nationwide, expanding development through multi-university collaboration56
EDGE-PRIME Initiative	FY2023-	Elementary through high school and technical college students	Extends the target into elementary and secondary education, working with regional university platforms and ambassadors21

The first-generation EDGE aimed to energize innovation in Japan by developing people who could carry university research into venture creation and new business, and by forming an ecosystem among related institutions⁴. It was run by MEXT's Science and Technology Policy Bureau — born as science and technology policy rather than education policy, an origin worth remembering.

The second-generation EDGE-NEXT ran for five years from FY2017 to FY2021, with five university consortia selected nationwide⁵⁶. To give a sense of scale: the Skyward EDGE consortium led by Waseda University drew a cumulative total of more than 20,000 participants, contributed to 38 startups and new businesses, and earned the top rating of S in MEXT's final evaluation⁶. As university-level education goes, the results were clearly strong.

Even so, the government did not stop there. Both EDGE and EDGE-NEXT are now explicitly listed as "completed programs" on the MEXT page², and the baton passed to elementary and secondary schools. The judgment behind that, I believe, was that starting at university is too late. An attitude of not fearing failure, and a habit of working with others toward a problem, do not suddenly appear at eighteen. Tell a first-year university student fresh from entrance exams to "feel free to think creatively," and most will simply freeze. Hence the turn toward delivering opportunities at the stage when challenge still feels natural — elementary through high school. A lineage born as a graduate-level program descended, over about a decade, all the way to the elementary classroom. EDGE-PRIME is where it landed.

What is actually happening: from showcase events to the national forum

Policy descriptions alone give you no texture, so let us look at actual events. A distinctive feature of EDGE-PRIME is that MEXT does not hand out programs directly; regional platforms centered on universities carry the implementation¹.

Start with Kansai. On February 10, 2024, the Kansai Startup Academia Coalition (KSAC), a platform centered on universities in the Kansai region, held an EDGE-PRIME showcase called "KSAC Entrepreneurs Day," drawing a cumulative 600 participants. The opening featured a talk by Takushi Izawa, CEO of QuizKnock and a well-known quiz player, in dialogue with students, and high schoolers who had taken on various challenges presented their ideas and projects in three-minute pitches at "DOON!Pitch"¹.

In Hokkaido, on March 9, 2024, the HSFC network (a mutual-support platform for startup development in Hokkaido) held its showcase "HOKKAIDO INNOVATION HUNTER." Alongside "Challenge Pizza" — a card game devised by Hokkaido University students that teaches entrepreneurship through running a pizza shop — eight teams of 27 elementary, junior high, and high school students who had received entrepreneurship education through the Period for Integrated (Inquiry-Based) Study presented their results, with 102 attendees including parents and university students¹. Personally, I think the phrase "through the inquiry period" is the most important line in the whole feature. It is evidence that entrepreneurship education is happening inside existing class hours, not as a special extracurricular event.

A national-scale venue exists too. On March 15, 2025, the "EDGE-PRIME Initiative National Forum for Expanding Entrepreneurship Education to Elementary, Junior High, and High School Students" was held at SHIBUYA QWS in Tokyo, hosted by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and co-hosted by MEXT. The program combined good-practice presentations from seven schools nationwide with a panel discussion on "how to bring entrepreneurship education into the school setting," ran as a free hybrid event in person and online, and offered on-site teaching material exhibits and networking⁷. Elementary and secondary school teachers are explicitly named among the intended audience, beginners welcome. It is a forum designed as a teacher's first stop for information gathering.

At the same time, MEXT itself is candid about the challenges. The bulletin feature states: "Across Japan, the situation is still very much one of 'what is entrepreneurship, anyway?' — awareness of entrepreneurship education and understanding of its necessity are insufficient, and this keeps adoption in schools from advancing"¹. It is rare for a ministry bulletin to put it that bluntly. Read the other way, it means schools considering adoption now are by no means late.

The support schools can use, and how to take part

So where, concretely, should a school start? Here are the entry points confirmable from primary sources as of July 2026, organized from a practitioner's viewpoint.

Support measure	Provider	Target	Content
Entrepreneurship Promotion Ambassador dispatch	MEXT	School classes and events, municipal events	Ambassadors, typically entrepreneurs, dispatched to schools; schools apply directly via a dedicated site8
Entrepreneurship education program support	SME Support Japan (SMRJ)	High schools, technical colleges (years 1-3), latter-stage secondary schools, special-needs upper secondary	Standard curriculum (5, 10, 20, or 30 hours) plus 2-4 outside instructor visits. Free of charge9
National Entrepreneurship Development Program	MEXT (commissioned project)	University, graduate, and technical college students; a small number of high schoolers may join	A nationwide program for acquiring entrepreneurship10

The first, the ambassador system, has the state shoulder what is usually the biggest barrier to inviting outside speakers: figuring out whom to ask and how. It began in January 2023, when the Minister of Education appointed ten Entrepreneurship Education Promotion Ambassadors¹. Dispatches were initially limited to national-scale events, but the program was later renamed the Entrepreneurship Promotion Ambassadors and widened to cover school classes, school events, and municipal events¹⁸. Schools apply directly, and matching and dispatch are arranged around the venue, date, and requested content. Applications for FY2026 dispatches opened on April 17, and the MEXT special site lets you browse the ambassador roster and apply⁸.

The second entry point comes from the METI side: the entrepreneurship education program support run by the Organization for Small and Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation (SME Support Japan). Built around a teacher delivering classes with a standard entrepreneurship curriculum, it packages annual plans of 5, 10, 20, or 30 hours, two to four visits by outside instructors such as entrepreneurs, and a results presentation. Use is free, with only communication and travel costs borne by the school. Listed settings include the inquiry period, regular subjects, and extracurricular activities⁹. Supported schools have grown steadily, from 4 in FY2022 to 10 in FY2023 and 20 in FY2024⁹. Case studies from past schools and surveys of how student attitudes changed before and after the program are also published, so you will not lack material for explaining the idea at a staff meeting¹. Since you can start with the minimal five-hour configuration, if I were in a school's position I would begin small here and test the response.

The third, the National Entrepreneurship Development Program, primarily serves university, graduate, and technical college students, but it explicitly states that a small number of high school students may participate¹⁰. Think of it as a landing spot for individually motivated students rather than a school-unit program. Beyond these, simply taking students to a showcase run by a regional platform like KSAC or HSFC is a perfectly good first contact. Counting the free national forum, EDGE-PRIME is unusually rich in entry points you can simply go and see.

How it connects to the N-E.X.T. High School Vision and inquiry-based learning

Let me pull the policy one more step toward practice. If entrepreneurship education lands as "one more job added to the pile," schools cannot move. In reality, places for it already exist inside current frameworks.

First, the Period for Inquiry-Based Cross-Disciplinary Study. Japan's high school Courses of Study set as a goal of the inquiry period fostering "an attitude of creating new value and seeking to realize a better society." That points in almost exactly the same direction as the entrepreneurship education definition — taking on challenges toward solving problems and exploring solutions with others. Both the Hokkaido case above and the SME Support Japan program explicitly name inquiry hours as the setting¹⁹. Nudge your inquiry themes one step toward real-world implementation, and entrepreneurship education has effectively begun. If the design of inquiry itself is the sticking point, the practical article on high school inquiry-based learning and generative AI and the collection of inquiry theme angles should help.

Second, convergence with the mainstream of high school policy. The N-E.X.T. High School Vision that MEXT published in February 2026 champions distinctive, attractive high schools and has begun pouring large-scale funds into reforming vocational and general-track schools. The selection results published on June 30, 2026 include project plans like Hamamatsu Technical High School's "building a hub for startup education" in Shizuoka¹¹. At Super Science High Schools (SSH), too, the new "innovation co-creation" category in the FY2026 priority track explicitly names "entrepreneurship education and the like"¹². Entrepreneurship education is no longer an extracurricular novelty; it is entering the evaluation axes of high school reform. I laid out the full picture in the guide to the N-E.X.T. High School Vision.

Let me also share the words of a leading figure on this theme. Yoichi Ito, dean of the Faculty of Entrepreneurship at Musashino University (opened in 2021), told an audience of high school career-guidance teachers that entrepreneurship is "a mindset of stepping forward without fearing failure and creating new value, grounded in high aspiration and ethics," and that "entrepreneurship education comes down to the question 'What do you want to do?' Career education is the same"¹³. Framing it as an education of questions rather than startup technique is, I find, the formulation that clicks best when thinking about the connection to inquiry-based learning. I myself am involved in supporting education at Musashino University's Faculty of Entrepreneurship, and I have seen firsthand, many times, both how hard and how effective it is to keep asking students what they want to do.

At TIMEWELL, through WARP for Schools, our program for schools and educational institutions, we help design inquiry-based learning that uses generative AI and walk alongside students as they build products with their own hands. We have been involved in developing more than 500 people and have worked on a partnership project with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (WARP ENTRE). If you are at a school and wondering how to connect a national framework like EDGE-PRIME with classroom practice, we are happy to start with a simple exchange of information. The process of students turning their own questions into products is something I describe concretely in the high school AI development guide as well.

Summary

• The EDGE-PRIME Initiative is MEXT's core entrepreneurship education program, running since FY2023 for students from elementary school through high school and technical colleges, with the November 2022 Startup Development Five-Year Plan as its backdrop.
• It is the third generation in a lineage after EDGE (from FY2014) and EDGE-NEXT (from FY2017), with the target descending from graduate students to schoolchildren.
• Schools have multiple entry points: ambassador dispatches applied for directly by schools, the free SME Support Japan program, and regional platform events that can be joined simply by attending.
• Entrepreneurship education overlaps with the goals of the inquiry period and is entering the evaluation axes of the N-E.X.T. High School Vision and SSH.
• MEXT itself admits awareness is still low. Schools starting now are not late.

The program's name looks forbidding, but unwind it and you arrive at a simple question: how do you build the experience of stepping forward into a class? One dispatch application, one small adjustment to an inquiry theme. That a national program can be entered with steps that small is, to my mind, EDGE-PRIME's greatest virtue.

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References

Related articles

• What Is the N-E.X.T. High School Vision? A Clear Guide to MEXT's High School Reform
• High School Inquiry-Based Learning × Generative AI: Practical Steps to Empower Students
• 50 AI Inquiry-Learning Themes: A Ready-to-Use Collection for Teachers
• A Guide to AI Development for High School Students: From Idea to Product
• What Is AI for Science? How AI Is Changing Scientific Research, and Japan's National Strategy

Footnotes

1. MEXT, "Board of Education Monthly Bulletin, May 2024 issue, Feature 2: Entrepreneurship Education for High School Students and Others — The Spreading EDGE-PRIME Initiative and Its Further Expansion" ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

2. MEXT, "MEXT Startup Support Measures" ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. MEXT, "EDGE-PRIME Initiative Kickoff Event" (June 3, 2023) ↩ ↩²

4. e-Gov Data Portal, "Enhancing Development of Global Entrepreneur Program (EDGE)" (MEXT Science and Technology Policy Bureau) ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Tohoku University, EARTH on EDGE Consortium, "Program Overview" ↩ ↩² ↩³

6. Waseda University, "Top Rating of S in the Final Evaluation of the MEXT Next-Generation Entrepreneur Development Program (EDGE-NEXT)" (January 17, 2023) ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. MEXT, "EDGE-PRIME Initiative National Forum for Expanding Entrepreneurship Education to Elementary, Junior High, and High School Students" (March 15, 2025) ↩

8. MEXT, "Entrepreneurship Promotion Ambassadors" ↩ ↩² ↩³

9. SME Support Japan, "FY2025 Entrepreneurship Education Program Support: Explanatory Materials" ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

10. MEXT, "National Entrepreneurship Cultivation Promotion Program" ↩ ↩²

11. MEXT, "FY2025 High School Education Reform Promotion Program for Industrial Innovation Talent: Selection Results" (June 30, 2026) ↩

12. MEXT, "Super Science High School (SSH) Support Program" (FY2026, Attachment 2) ↩

13. Aomori Prefectural High School Education Research Association, Career Guidance Division, "48th Research Conference Keynote: Entrepreneurship Education and Career Education, Lecture Transcript" (FY2024 research bulletin) ↩