For the second year in a row, Mitamura Seminar wins Excellence Award at the Securities Seminar Conference

Four teams from Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration Associate Professor 's seminar participated in the 2017 Securities Seminar Competition held on December 8th and 9th, and the team led by third-year student Katsunobu Yatabe (graduated from Ishioka Commercial High School) won the Excellence Award. This is the second year in a row that Mitamura's seminar has won the award.

The Securities Seminar Conference, sponsored by the Japan Securities Dealers Association, is organized by the National Federation of Securities Research Students. With the aim of conducting practical research on securities and finance and promoting exchanges between universities, many students from seminars and research groups at universities across the country participate in the two-day event, which includes paper presentations and lively discussions. This year, 113 teams from 46 seminars and organizations at 32 universities participated. Each team chose one of six themes, such as revitalizing the domestic securities market and investment trusts as a means of asset formation, to write a paper. Yatabe's team, consisting of five members, chose the theme "Improving financial literacy at the school level." Sixteen teams, including Mitamura's seminar, participated in this theme, and they were divided into three blocks to give slide presentations on various problems in financial education and their solutions.

Japan is in an era where people need to increase their assets themselves, against the backdrop of low interest rates and an aging population, but interest in investing is low. Money is something people need as long as they live. To achieve a better life throughout their lives, they need the knowledge and skills to understand the rapidly changing social and economic situation and to build assets in preparation for risks. Yatabe's team proposes implementing education at each school level that links finance with economics and politics. At the elementary school level, students learn financial sense and income and expenditure management through simulated experiences. At the junior high school level, they focus on financial assets other than savings, experience asset management using games, record stock fluctuations over a certain period of time, and understand the relationship with social and economic conditions. On top of that, at the high school level, they incorporate a simulation of stock trading based on actual stock prices. In this simulation, students experience virtual stock investment based on fieldwork where they visit companies they want to invest in and analysis of information obtained from economic news in newspapers and on television, but the team thought that they could experience the connection between society and finance through active participation in economic activities.

A notable feature of this proposal is the incorporation of "citizenship education" as introduced in the US and Europe. It teaches children about social responsibility, obedience to the law, and involvement in society so that they can fulfill their role as citizens in the future, and is seen as education that encourages social participation. Yatabe and his team hope that by learning about the relationship between society and money through simulated experiences of independent economic activity at each school level and realizing its importance, students will be motivated to build assets and participate in society in the future. In addition, this type of financial education requires teacher training, and the team's proposal also mentioned adding financial education to teacher training courses and ways to support existing teachers in implementing financial education.

The Mitamura seminar focuses on finance as a research theme, and students are studying finance theory, consisting of corporate finance, capital markets, and securities investment. Third-year students have been working hard since spring on writing papers in teams, with participation in the Securities Seminar Conference as the core of their research activities. Winning the Excellence Award for the second consecutive year at a conference that brings together universities from all over the country has been a positive stimulus for seminar activities and has led to increased motivation for students to conduct research.

Participating in the Securities Seminar Conference

I am very happy to receive the Excellence Award at the Securities Seminar Conference. I felt some pressure because last year, my seniors won the Excellence Award for the first time in their seminar, but I worked hard with the determination to "aim to win for the second year in a row if I participate."
Looking back at our time from elementary school to high school, we hardly feel that we received any financial education. However, in today's society, which is facing problems such as low interest rates and a declining birthrate and aging population, there is an increasing need to build up assets and save for retirement. We placed emphasis on education that encourages social participation. Even if we only teach finance, if it is not linked to the social background of why it is important, the awareness of increasing assets and interest in investment may remain low. It is said that countries with high financial literacy have high voting rates, but we thought that being interested in policies that are connected to real life and actively participating in society would lead to financial knowledge and action. The proposal includes content that can be learned from the simulated experience at each school level, and we have also experienced virtual stock investment and made it a habit to read the newspaper, which has helped us understand economic trends. I think that we have become able to research more and think about things from various perspectives.

member

Katsunobu Yatabe, 3rd year student Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration Department of Commerce (graduated from Ishioka Commercial High School)
Katsutoshi Tsuda, 3rd year student Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration Department of Commerce and Economics (graduated from Chiba Keizai University High School)
Takumi Yoshida, 3rd year, Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration Department of Commerce (graduated from Choshi Commercial High School)
Eimi Saito, 3rd year, Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration Department of Commerce (graduated from Kumagaya Commercial High School)
Ryota Kataoka, 3rd year, Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration Department of Commerce (graduated from Funabashi Toyotomi High School)