assigned to the Training Squadron where she conducted long-distance oceanic navigation and officer training for cadets in the Imperial Japanese Navy Academy. She began the first of her 16 training cruises on 20 April 1916, together with Azuma, and visited Australia and Southeast Asia before returning home on 22 August. The ship was relieved of her assignment the next month, but rejoined the Training Squadron a year later in preparation for her next training cruise. Iwate departed on 2 March 1918, bound for Central America, Hawaii and the South Sea Islands, and returned on 6 July. Two years later, the ship began her next training cruise on 21 August 1920, visiting South America and the South Sea Islands, before returning on 4 April 1921. On 1 September, she was re-designated as a 1st-class coast-defense ship. On 26 June 1922, Iwate, accompanied by Izumo and Yakumo, began a circumnavigation of the world that took them to Hawaii, Los Angeles, California, through the Panama Canal to Rio de Janeiro, where the cadets viewed the Independence Centenary International Exposition commemorating Brazilian independence. The ships then visited Buenos Aires, Argentina and Durban, South Africa before heading home via the Indian Ocean, where they arrived on 8 February 1923. In 1924, four of Iwates 12-pounder guns were removed, as were all of her QF 2.5-pounder guns, and a single 8 cm/40 3rd Year Type anti-aircraft (AA) gun was added. Refitted again in 1931, her torpedo tubes were removed as were all of her main deck 6-inch guns and their casemates plated over; she now carried only two 12-pounders, although she now had three 8 cm/40 3rd Year Type AA guns. In addition her boilers were replaced by six Yarrow boilers with an output of only which reduced her top speed to . She now carried of coal and of fuel oil. Her crew now numbered 726 officers and enlisted men. The ship continued to make training cruises, usually at two-year intervals, for the rest of the decade that took her to the East Coast of North America and the Mediterranean Sea among other places. One of her cadets on the 1925–26 cruise was Prince Hironobu Fushimi. In December 1928, the ship escorted Emperor Hirohito during an Imperial fleet review in Yokohama harbor. From 1932 the training voyages became annual events, with the exception of 1935, until they ceased at the end of 1939. Iwate was