34 Indian students to be included in Sakura Science Programme 2025 in Japan

Thirty-four students of government schools in India have been chosen for the coveted Japan-Asia Youth Exchange Program in Science, popularly called the Sakura Science Programme. Organized by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), the programme gives youngsters the opportunity to experience Japan's advanced scientific growth alongside its lifestyle first-hand.

The 2025 session would be conducted from August 17-23 with the Indian students joining the students from Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia. There are 13 boys and 21 girls Indians who have been selected from the Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Lakshadweep, Odisha, Puducherry, West Bengal government schools and the demonstration schools of the Regional Institute of Education (RIE) at Ajmer, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, and Mysuru. There are three supervisors in the group.

India has been a part of the Sakura Programme since 2016, and more than 630 students and 90 guides have made trips to Japan under this exchange scheme since then. The program, which was launched in the world in 2014, is aimed at enhancing scientific curiosity among young minds and developing international collaborations.

The chosen students were flagged off formally at a function conducted at NCERT, New Delhi, by the Department of School Education & Literacy (DoSEL), Ministry of Education. Sanjay Kumar, Secretary DoSEL, Professor Prakash Chandra Agrawal, Joint Director, NCERT, and Archana Sharma Awasthi, Joint Secretary, DoSEL, accompanied them.

In his speech on the occasion, Sanjay Kumar called the effort a "golden opportunity" for young participants. He urged teachers and students to derive maximum advantages from the experience, citing how exposure to Japan's highly advanced systems would fire up future innovators and make India-Japan relations closer.