People :
Starting a Nursery School Education Business
Mr. Kenta Takeuchi

Kenta Takeuchi, a senior in the School of Political Science and Economics, belongs to Professor Kazunori Araki’s Seminar. He was born in Hyogo Prefecture in 1984, and graduated from Nagata Prefectural High school. He likes baseball and reading.

Recently, to support working women who are raising children, there are an increasing number of cases where hospitals and companies have established nurseries. Think Education Co., established by Mr. Takeuchi, is a nursery consulting company. Becoming interested in childcare services when he was an intern, he founded Think Education with some like-minded colleagues. Now, in addition to consulting, Mr. Takeuchi, attempting to fulfill the need for quality in preschool education that is increasingly demanded by parents, has entered the field of nursery school education. He has established various courses such as Signed English, which combines English with signing (as in American Sign Language), and the “Sports Elite Training Course”, a physical education course which recognizes that the nursery school years are the ideal time to train the muscles of the trunk, which have a great influence over sports ability. At times, Mr. Takeuchi infiltrates the mothers' groups and listens to their worries. He's easy to get to know, and words like "cheerful" and "lively" fit him perfectly.

Now, when he's a senior, he is actively involved in the work of the company he has started. At the same time, though, his feeling for the university is far stronger than that of the average student. “I like Waseda an awful lot. I am proud of Waseda graduates who have contributed to society”. When he went to a baseball team party at his old high school, he wore a mortarboard, cloak, and geta, and, playing a rough and vulgar student, tried to cause a commotion, but was stopped by his younger friends. During the campus festival, he participated in a stage drama “The King of Waseda Final Contests”, enthusiastically playing a character who out of a sense of justice rescued a dog (a stuffed one, of course) from a pond and held an umbrella over the head of a security guard who was getting wet in the rain. “I came to Waseda to meet individualistic Waseda students, but my friends tell me that nobody is more typically Waseda than I am.”

“Because I was born in Kobe, I was able to observe the process of reconstruction of buildings that had collapsed during the earthquake. In the future I hope I can contribute to Kobe’s economic recovery.” Furthermore, this year Waseda is holding an exchange program with Lithuanian students as part of the 2005 Japan-EU Year People-to-People Exchanges. Mr. Takeuchi is scheduled to give a speech in English on “a sustainable economy” at Vilnius University in Lithuania. Mr. Takeuchi maintains an inimitable balance of thoughtfulness and wackiness. He is really a dependable contemporary Waseda student.