The education ministry has issued a notification to allow Japanese universities and graduate schools to offer their undergraduate and graduate courses overseas in an apparent move to support their extension abroad, ministry sources said Monday।
While no universities have concrete plans to go international at present, it will be possible for students to gain credits at Japanese colleges without visiting Japan।
So far, Japanese colleges have been required to establish local subsidiaries when they promote educational and research activities overseas।
In advancing overseas, colleges and graduate schools need to fulfill certain criteria in the number of teachers and in facilities, according to the sources at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology।
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D94UIHBO0&show_article=1
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Japan welcomes Chinese students
There are a multitude of talented people among Chinese students, and if it had not been for the Chinese students, Japan could not have achieved so much in its education for overseas students, said a Japanese education ministry official in a recent interview with Xinhua। "Chinese students are often referred to as being well-grounded in their academic studies, outstanding in their theoretical level and fine in their personal qualities at universities here," said Yuichi Oda, who is in charge of student exchange programs in the higher education bureau of Japan's Education Ministry। In colleges of Japan's universities, students from China command a large share, and they have played an important role in Japan's higher education, he added. "In a sense, Japan's education for overseas students can not possibly make progress without the participation of those from China," the official said. Chinese students account for more than 60 percent of overseas students studying in Japan, a marked rise from some 20 percent in 1983, according to Oda. Chinese students began to study in Japan in 1972 when the two nations normalized their diplomatic relations, but the number remained small until 1978, he said. It hit a peak in 2005 when a total of 80,592 Chinese students were studying in Japan. "There have been an increasing number of Chinese students studying in Japan since 1979 when the Chinese government-funded student exchange programs were launched," said Oda. In July 2008, six Japanese government departments, including the education, foreign and justice ministries, launched a program aiming to attract 300,000 overseas students to Japan. Under the program, relevant authorities will simplify immigration procedures, facilitate the internationalization of universities and provide support for overseas students in their daily life and employment. "Japan heartily welcomes Chinese students to Japan and is looking forward to a greater number of Chinese students under the program," Oda said.Source:Xinhua
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Romania Japan studies head hailed
Kanji Tsushima was deeply moved when he heard that one of the students in his Japanese-language class 30 years ago in Bucharest had won two awards for her role in introducing his country's culture to Romania by translating modern literature.
"She was by far the most enthusiastic student in my class" from 1976 to 1978 at Dalles Popular University, said Tsushima, who was then a second secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Romania।
His former student is Angela Hondru, who now heads the Japanese Studies Department at Hyperion University in Bucharest।
At the time Hondru was a student, there was nobody available for Japanese-language training, so Tsushima accepted the headmaster's request to teach at Dalles Popular University, hoping at the height of the Cold War that people in the Eastern European country would grow interested in Japan।
"Ms। Hondru was so inquisitive about Japanese affairs. It seemed that she had fallen in love with Japan," recalled Tsushima, 65, who was ambassador to Romania from April 2006 to September 2008 before retiring from the Foreign Ministry last month.
Hondru won a Japanese Foreign Minister's Commendation for fiscal 2008 in July and the Japan Foundation Award for Japanese Language for fiscal 2008 on Oct। 1.
"I would not have come this far without my affection and respect for Japanese culture," Hondru said। "I would like to see the recognition of my work by the Japanese government as encouragement to further advance my teaching and research activities."
The 63-year-old professor said she was fascinated by Japan when she saw displays of a picture scroll depicting the 11th-century novel "The Tale of Genji" and an India ink painting at a national art museum in Bucharest in 1975। At the time, she was teaching English to junior high and high school students.
Hondru took over Tsushima's post as an instructor at the university after the diplomat completed his second posting in Bucharest in 1978। Hondru wrote a textbook on the Japanese language in 1980 before visiting Japan for the first time that summer through a language training program.
While translating works by Japanese novelists, including Yukio Mishima, Haruki Murakami and Osamu Dazai, Hondru took the initiative in launching the Japanese Studies Department at Hyperion University in 1990 and setting up Japanese-language courses at junior high schools in 1992 and high schools in 1996, earning her the nickname "Mother of Japanese-language education in Romania।"
Hondru also trained Romanian experts on Japanese affairs who have assumed posts at the University of Bucharest, Hyperion University and other institutions in Romania.
Helped by the popularity of Japanese "manga" and "anime" among youths, the number of Japanese-language students in Romania totals about 1,600 today, with many of them starting out under the supervision of Hondru, according to the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and Romanian Ambassador to Japan Aurelian Neagu।
Hondru counts among her former students Neagu's son, Andrei, who works for a Japanese company operating in Romania, Neagu's secretary, Silvia Cercheaza, and Diana Tihan, press and cultural attache at the Romanian Embassy in Tokyo।
Romanians have found incentives to learn Japanese since the country joined the European Union in 2007, which created business opportunities for Japanese companies. As of July, 18 Japanese manufacturers operate in Romania, according to the Japan External Trade Organization.
"Mr। Tsushima planted the seed and professor Hondru grew it into a big tree," Neagu said. "This, I would say, is a beautiful 'sempai-kohai' (senior-junior) relationship" that has helped broaden ties between the two countries.
Neagu said Tsushima was also known for teaching kendo to Romanians during his stints there and for building strong ties with the local kendo federation।
Looking back at his diplomatic career, including 30 years of friendship with Hondru and kendo practitioners in Romania, Tsushima called on young Japanese diplomats and citizens to pursue powerful cultural diplomacy, especially when Japan's economic clout appears to be declining amid the rise of China, India and other emerging countries।
Recently, Hondru has expanded the scope of her studies into Japan's folklore, comparing ceremonial occasions such as weddings and funerals between Japan and Romania। She also conducts research on Japanese myths and "kagura," a sacred dancing style of Shinto origin that dates from early times.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081118f2.html
"She was by far the most enthusiastic student in my class" from 1976 to 1978 at Dalles Popular University, said Tsushima, who was then a second secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Romania।
His former student is Angela Hondru, who now heads the Japanese Studies Department at Hyperion University in Bucharest।
At the time Hondru was a student, there was nobody available for Japanese-language training, so Tsushima accepted the headmaster's request to teach at Dalles Popular University, hoping at the height of the Cold War that people in the Eastern European country would grow interested in Japan।
"Ms। Hondru was so inquisitive about Japanese affairs. It seemed that she had fallen in love with Japan," recalled Tsushima, 65, who was ambassador to Romania from April 2006 to September 2008 before retiring from the Foreign Ministry last month.
Hondru won a Japanese Foreign Minister's Commendation for fiscal 2008 in July and the Japan Foundation Award for Japanese Language for fiscal 2008 on Oct। 1.
"I would not have come this far without my affection and respect for Japanese culture," Hondru said। "I would like to see the recognition of my work by the Japanese government as encouragement to further advance my teaching and research activities."
The 63-year-old professor said she was fascinated by Japan when she saw displays of a picture scroll depicting the 11th-century novel "The Tale of Genji" and an India ink painting at a national art museum in Bucharest in 1975। At the time, she was teaching English to junior high and high school students.
Hondru took over Tsushima's post as an instructor at the university after the diplomat completed his second posting in Bucharest in 1978। Hondru wrote a textbook on the Japanese language in 1980 before visiting Japan for the first time that summer through a language training program.
While translating works by Japanese novelists, including Yukio Mishima, Haruki Murakami and Osamu Dazai, Hondru took the initiative in launching the Japanese Studies Department at Hyperion University in 1990 and setting up Japanese-language courses at junior high schools in 1992 and high schools in 1996, earning her the nickname "Mother of Japanese-language education in Romania।"
Hondru also trained Romanian experts on Japanese affairs who have assumed posts at the University of Bucharest, Hyperion University and other institutions in Romania.
Helped by the popularity of Japanese "manga" and "anime" among youths, the number of Japanese-language students in Romania totals about 1,600 today, with many of them starting out under the supervision of Hondru, according to the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and Romanian Ambassador to Japan Aurelian Neagu।
Hondru counts among her former students Neagu's son, Andrei, who works for a Japanese company operating in Romania, Neagu's secretary, Silvia Cercheaza, and Diana Tihan, press and cultural attache at the Romanian Embassy in Tokyo।
Romanians have found incentives to learn Japanese since the country joined the European Union in 2007, which created business opportunities for Japanese companies. As of July, 18 Japanese manufacturers operate in Romania, according to the Japan External Trade Organization.
"Mr। Tsushima planted the seed and professor Hondru grew it into a big tree," Neagu said. "This, I would say, is a beautiful 'sempai-kohai' (senior-junior) relationship" that has helped broaden ties between the two countries.
Neagu said Tsushima was also known for teaching kendo to Romanians during his stints there and for building strong ties with the local kendo federation।
Looking back at his diplomatic career, including 30 years of friendship with Hondru and kendo practitioners in Romania, Tsushima called on young Japanese diplomats and citizens to pursue powerful cultural diplomacy, especially when Japan's economic clout appears to be declining amid the rise of China, India and other emerging countries।
Recently, Hondru has expanded the scope of her studies into Japan's folklore, comparing ceremonial occasions such as weddings and funerals between Japan and Romania। She also conducts research on Japanese myths and "kagura," a sacred dancing style of Shinto origin that dates from early times.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081118f2.html
Romania Japan studies head hailed
Kanji Tsushima was deeply moved when he heard that one of the students in his Japanese-language class 30 years ago in Bucharest had won two awards for her role in introducing his country's culture to Romania by translating modern literature.
"She was by far the most enthusiastic student in my class" from 1976 to 1978 at Dalles Popular University, said Tsushima, who was then a second secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Romania।
His former student is Angela Hondru, who now heads the Japanese Studies Department at Hyperion University in Bucharest।
At the time Hondru was a student, there was nobody available for Japanese-language training, so Tsushima accepted the headmaster's request to teach at Dalles Popular University, hoping at the height of the Cold War that people in the Eastern European country would grow interested in Japan।
"Ms। Hondru was so inquisitive about Japanese affairs. It seemed that she had fallen in love with Japan," recalled Tsushima, 65, who was ambassador to Romania from April 2006 to September 2008 before retiring from the Foreign Ministry last month.
Hondru won a Japanese Foreign Minister's Commendation for fiscal 2008 in July and the Japan Foundation Award for Japanese Language for fiscal 2008 on Oct। 1.
"I would not have come this far without my affection and respect for Japanese culture," Hondru said। "I would like to see the recognition of my work by the Japanese government as encouragement to further advance my teaching and research activities."
The 63-year-old professor said she was fascinated by Japan when she saw displays of a picture scroll depicting the 11th-century novel "The Tale of Genji" and an India ink painting at a national art museum in Bucharest in 1975। At the time, she was teaching English to junior high and high school students.
Hondru took over Tsushima's post as an instructor at the university after the diplomat completed his second posting in Bucharest in 1978। Hondru wrote a textbook on the Japanese language in 1980 before visiting Japan for the first time that summer through a language training program.
While translating works by Japanese novelists, including Yukio Mishima, Haruki Murakami and Osamu Dazai, Hondru took the initiative in launching the Japanese Studies Department at Hyperion University in 1990 and setting up Japanese-language courses at junior high schools in 1992 and high schools in 1996, earning her the nickname "Mother of Japanese-language education in Romania।"
Hondru also trained Romanian experts on Japanese affairs who have assumed posts at the University of Bucharest, Hyperion University and other institutions in Romania.
Helped by the popularity of Japanese "manga" and "anime" among youths, the number of Japanese-language students in Romania totals about 1,600 today, with many of them starting out under the supervision of Hondru, according to the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and Romanian Ambassador to Japan Aurelian Neagu।
Hondru counts among her former students Neagu's son, Andrei, who works for a Japanese company operating in Romania, Neagu's secretary, Silvia Cercheaza, and Diana Tihan, press and cultural attache at the Romanian Embassy in Tokyo।
Romanians have found incentives to learn Japanese since the country joined the European Union in 2007, which created business opportunities for Japanese companies. As of July, 18 Japanese manufacturers operate in Romania, according to the Japan External Trade Organization.
"Mr। Tsushima planted the seed and professor Hondru grew it into a big tree," Neagu said. "This, I would say, is a beautiful 'sempai-kohai' (senior-junior) relationship" that has helped broaden ties between the two countries.
Neagu said Tsushima was also known for teaching kendo to Romanians during his stints there and for building strong ties with the local kendo federation।
Looking back at his diplomatic career, including 30 years of friendship with Hondru and kendo practitioners in Romania, Tsushima called on young Japanese diplomats and citizens to pursue powerful cultural diplomacy, especially when Japan's economic clout appears to be declining amid the rise of China, India and other emerging countries।
Recently, Hondru has expanded the scope of her studies into Japan's folklore, comparing ceremonial occasions such as weddings and funerals between Japan and Romania। She also conducts research on Japanese myths and "kagura," a sacred dancing style of Shinto origin that dates from early times.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081118f2.html
"She was by far the most enthusiastic student in my class" from 1976 to 1978 at Dalles Popular University, said Tsushima, who was then a second secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Romania।
His former student is Angela Hondru, who now heads the Japanese Studies Department at Hyperion University in Bucharest।
At the time Hondru was a student, there was nobody available for Japanese-language training, so Tsushima accepted the headmaster's request to teach at Dalles Popular University, hoping at the height of the Cold War that people in the Eastern European country would grow interested in Japan।
"Ms। Hondru was so inquisitive about Japanese affairs. It seemed that she had fallen in love with Japan," recalled Tsushima, 65, who was ambassador to Romania from April 2006 to September 2008 before retiring from the Foreign Ministry last month.
Hondru won a Japanese Foreign Minister's Commendation for fiscal 2008 in July and the Japan Foundation Award for Japanese Language for fiscal 2008 on Oct। 1.
"I would not have come this far without my affection and respect for Japanese culture," Hondru said। "I would like to see the recognition of my work by the Japanese government as encouragement to further advance my teaching and research activities."
The 63-year-old professor said she was fascinated by Japan when she saw displays of a picture scroll depicting the 11th-century novel "The Tale of Genji" and an India ink painting at a national art museum in Bucharest in 1975। At the time, she was teaching English to junior high and high school students.
Hondru took over Tsushima's post as an instructor at the university after the diplomat completed his second posting in Bucharest in 1978। Hondru wrote a textbook on the Japanese language in 1980 before visiting Japan for the first time that summer through a language training program.
While translating works by Japanese novelists, including Yukio Mishima, Haruki Murakami and Osamu Dazai, Hondru took the initiative in launching the Japanese Studies Department at Hyperion University in 1990 and setting up Japanese-language courses at junior high schools in 1992 and high schools in 1996, earning her the nickname "Mother of Japanese-language education in Romania।"
Hondru also trained Romanian experts on Japanese affairs who have assumed posts at the University of Bucharest, Hyperion University and other institutions in Romania.
Helped by the popularity of Japanese "manga" and "anime" among youths, the number of Japanese-language students in Romania totals about 1,600 today, with many of them starting out under the supervision of Hondru, according to the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and Romanian Ambassador to Japan Aurelian Neagu।
Hondru counts among her former students Neagu's son, Andrei, who works for a Japanese company operating in Romania, Neagu's secretary, Silvia Cercheaza, and Diana Tihan, press and cultural attache at the Romanian Embassy in Tokyo।
Romanians have found incentives to learn Japanese since the country joined the European Union in 2007, which created business opportunities for Japanese companies. As of July, 18 Japanese manufacturers operate in Romania, according to the Japan External Trade Organization.
"Mr। Tsushima planted the seed and professor Hondru grew it into a big tree," Neagu said. "This, I would say, is a beautiful 'sempai-kohai' (senior-junior) relationship" that has helped broaden ties between the two countries.
Neagu said Tsushima was also known for teaching kendo to Romanians during his stints there and for building strong ties with the local kendo federation।
Looking back at his diplomatic career, including 30 years of friendship with Hondru and kendo practitioners in Romania, Tsushima called on young Japanese diplomats and citizens to pursue powerful cultural diplomacy, especially when Japan's economic clout appears to be declining amid the rise of China, India and other emerging countries।
Recently, Hondru has expanded the scope of her studies into Japan's folklore, comparing ceremonial occasions such as weddings and funerals between Japan and Romania। She also conducts research on Japanese myths and "kagura," a sacred dancing style of Shinto origin that dates from early times.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081118f2.html
Jobs forecast looks bleak for 2010 graduates
Students graduating from universities and other schools in spring 2010 face severely diminished employment prospects, according to an Asahi Shimbun survey of 100 large corporations.
Many employers plan to curb job offers for new graduates as the global financial crisis overshadows their earnings outlook।
The tough job environment will mark a reversal from the workers' market in recent years, when companies aggressively hired new recruits।
The Asahi Shimbun survey conducted from late October to early November found that 15 companies plan to reduce the number of new hirings in spring 2010 from the previous year.
Only two respondents plan to increase the number of new recruits।
The Asahi Shimbun annually conducts a similar survey around the end of March, when companies finalize their employment plans for the following spring।
While the findings of the latest survey cannot be compared directly with those studies, it marks the first time in seven years that more companies are reducing job offers than increasing them.
In the latest survey, as many as 39 companies said they have yet to decide on the plans for spring 2010, when current university juniors graduate, and 44 others said they plan to hire around the same number of new recruits।
Many of the companies that plan to reduce the number of new recruits cited deteriorating economic conditions।
An official at a chemical company said the company will take on fewer graduates due to the uncertain economic outlook।
An official at an electronics manufacturer said the company will have to cut down on new recruits if the current economic conditions continue।
Meanwhile, a company in the service industry said the firm will be adjusting the pace of employment to ordinary levels after years of expansion।
The number of companies reducing job offers will likely increase, however।
Some of the respondents that are still undecided about their 2010 hiring plans added that they are bracing for tough employment situations or that the best they can expect is to keep job offers around the same level as the previous year।
Still, a number of respondents said they planned to continue hiring new recruits in the medium to long term।
Many Japanese companies have disproportionately few employees in certain age brackets, because they squeezed hirings in the years after the collapse of the late 1980s asset-inflated economic boom।
An official at an electronics manufacturer said that even if the company decides to reduce the number of new recruits, an "extremely low figure" will be out of the question।
An official at a securities house said the firm needs a certain number of new recruits every year because the brokerage business depends on human resources।(IHT/Asahi: November 17,2008)
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200811170090.html
Many employers plan to curb job offers for new graduates as the global financial crisis overshadows their earnings outlook।
The tough job environment will mark a reversal from the workers' market in recent years, when companies aggressively hired new recruits।
The Asahi Shimbun survey conducted from late October to early November found that 15 companies plan to reduce the number of new hirings in spring 2010 from the previous year.
Only two respondents plan to increase the number of new recruits।
The Asahi Shimbun annually conducts a similar survey around the end of March, when companies finalize their employment plans for the following spring।
While the findings of the latest survey cannot be compared directly with those studies, it marks the first time in seven years that more companies are reducing job offers than increasing them.
In the latest survey, as many as 39 companies said they have yet to decide on the plans for spring 2010, when current university juniors graduate, and 44 others said they plan to hire around the same number of new recruits।
Many of the companies that plan to reduce the number of new recruits cited deteriorating economic conditions।
An official at a chemical company said the company will take on fewer graduates due to the uncertain economic outlook।
An official at an electronics manufacturer said the company will have to cut down on new recruits if the current economic conditions continue।
Meanwhile, a company in the service industry said the firm will be adjusting the pace of employment to ordinary levels after years of expansion।
The number of companies reducing job offers will likely increase, however।
Some of the respondents that are still undecided about their 2010 hiring plans added that they are bracing for tough employment situations or that the best they can expect is to keep job offers around the same level as the previous year।
Still, a number of respondents said they planned to continue hiring new recruits in the medium to long term।
Many Japanese companies have disproportionately few employees in certain age brackets, because they squeezed hirings in the years after the collapse of the late 1980s asset-inflated economic boom।
An official at an electronics manufacturer said that even if the company decides to reduce the number of new recruits, an "extremely low figure" will be out of the question।
An official at a securities house said the firm needs a certain number of new recruits every year because the brokerage business depends on human resources।(IHT/Asahi: November 17,2008)
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200811170090.html
Friday, November 07, 2008
Waseda Univ. extends tuition payment deadlines for foreign students
Waseda University announced Thursday it will extend for about three months tuition payment deadlines for its around 2,400 students from roughly 80 countries abroad enrolled in its undergraduate and graduate programs, saying the global financial crisis may be hitting their livelihood।
The major private university in Tokyo said 339 students from South Korea, for instance, have tuition payments in arrears, although the total includes those who had failed to make payments before the financial crisis started biting।
The South Korean won has depreciated particularly sharply against the Japanese yen, which makes yen-denominated payments more difficult for them। The university said it polled around 100 South Korean students and many of them said they have difficulty making ends meet and honoring tuition payments.
Also eligible for the extended deadlines are two students from Iceland, a country reeling from a massive outflow of bank deposits as the banking sector has collapsed।
The deadline is extended to January for the first semester and to July for the second semester, according to the university।
The university also announced that those enrolling in the 2009 school year after graduating from Japanese high schools outside Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures will be eligible for a grant of 400,000 yen per year, subject to meeting certain criteria such as household income levels।
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D949DI000&show_article=1
The major private university in Tokyo said 339 students from South Korea, for instance, have tuition payments in arrears, although the total includes those who had failed to make payments before the financial crisis started biting।
The South Korean won has depreciated particularly sharply against the Japanese yen, which makes yen-denominated payments more difficult for them। The university said it polled around 100 South Korean students and many of them said they have difficulty making ends meet and honoring tuition payments.
Also eligible for the extended deadlines are two students from Iceland, a country reeling from a massive outflow of bank deposits as the banking sector has collapsed।
The deadline is extended to January for the first semester and to July for the second semester, according to the university।
The university also announced that those enrolling in the 2009 school year after graduating from Japanese high schools outside Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures will be eligible for a grant of 400,000 yen per year, subject to meeting certain criteria such as household income levels।
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D949DI000&show_article=1
Medical school admission quotas to be expanded to record level
The education ministry announced Tuesday a plan to increase the total admission quotas of the medical departments at the nation's public and private universities to a record high 8,486 for school year a move intended to respond to the critical shortage of doctors।
The total represents an increase of 693 from a year earlier at 77 of the 79 institutions that have medical schools and the plan is expected to be finalized later this year। The previous record high was 8,280 in the academic year 1981.
Universities and colleges have also come up with incentives for prospective doctors to serve provincial areas by offering expanded scholarships and special admission quotas for students graduating from provincial high schools, according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology।
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9484L9G0&show_article=1
The total represents an increase of 693 from a year earlier at 77 of the 79 institutions that have medical schools and the plan is expected to be finalized later this year। The previous record high was 8,280 in the academic year 1981.
Universities and colleges have also come up with incentives for prospective doctors to serve provincial areas by offering expanded scholarships and special admission quotas for students graduating from provincial high schools, according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology।
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9484L9G0&show_article=1
Monday, November 03, 2008
After Merci, Pune may soon learn to say Arigato
Pune may soon be saying Arigato Gosaimasu in no uncertain terms as after France, it is Japan that has zeroed in on Pune as its prime destination to attract foreign students to their national universities। The embassy of Japan has recently asked Japan Students Service Organisation (JASSO) — a wing of Japan government’s ministry of education set up to assist international students — to concentrate on Pune.
“The number of students learning Japanese language in Pune is huge as compared to any other city in India, which can act as a potential student base for Japanese universities,” said Tomohiko Hikichi, deputy director, student and development department, JASSO।
He said development of Pune as an IT and automobile hub adds to its potential for Japanese universities to focus on Pune।
It may be recalled that during the visit of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the head office of n+i, a consortium of 75 government-run engineering institutes, was shifted to Pune from Delhi.
Now, the Japan embassy also has recommended Pune as a perfect destination to attract students to their universities।
Hikichi was in the city on Saturday for the Japan Education Fair, jointly organised by JASSO and the Pune chapter of Mombusho Scholars Association of India (MOSAI), at Garware College। Around 1,000 city students visited the fair, which showcased 13 national universities from Japan.
“Considering the plus points of Pune, the embassy of Japan recommended JASSO to organise education fairs at Pune,” said Hikichi। This is the second year of the fair and the response so far is very good, he said. JASSO organises education fair in 20 cities of 10 Asian countries every year. Till 2006, Delhi was the only destination for JASSO in India to have education fair.
“Every year, around 2,000 students in Pune enroll for Japanese language classes। This is a huge number when compared to other parts of the country,” said Umesh Joshi, vice-president of MOSAI. “We requested JASSO to come to Pune and are glad they responded positively. It will help increase the number of students going to Japan for higher education,” said Joshi.
“So far, the number of Indian students going to Japan is very less — 480 last year — as compared to one lakh students of Chinese origin. There are very good opportunities in terms of employment after graduation in Japan. But many Indian students don’t know about it,” he said.
Hikichi pointed out that language was no barrier। “There are 30 universities in Japan which offer courses in English and there is no compulsion to learn Japanese. The Japanese government in fact encouraging universities to start delivering higher education in English,” he said.
Hikichi said the Japanese government had set the target of attracting 3 lakh international students to Japan till 2020। “We are definitely looking at India as one of the potential resource centres,” he said.
City to be the entry point to universities in Japan
Mombusho Scholars Association of India (MOSAI) has forwarded a proposal to Japan Students Service Organisation (JASSO) to make Pune a hub for conducting Entrance to Japanese Universities (EJU) tests।
“Presently, the EJU is conducted in Delhi। The examination is a gateway to Japanese universities for higher studies. Considering the students’ base in Pune, we have forwarded a proposal to JASSO to make Pune a centre for EJU,” said Joshi.
As a first step, MOSAI would start a training centre for students willing to take EJU examination। “We will start the training centre by January 2009. It has been observed that students find it difficult to clear EJU. The training centre will provide the required guidance,” he said.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/after-merci-pune-may-soon-learn-to-say-arigato/380247/
“The number of students learning Japanese language in Pune is huge as compared to any other city in India, which can act as a potential student base for Japanese universities,” said Tomohiko Hikichi, deputy director, student and development department, JASSO।
He said development of Pune as an IT and automobile hub adds to its potential for Japanese universities to focus on Pune।
It may be recalled that during the visit of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the head office of n+i, a consortium of 75 government-run engineering institutes, was shifted to Pune from Delhi.
Now, the Japan embassy also has recommended Pune as a perfect destination to attract students to their universities।
Hikichi was in the city on Saturday for the Japan Education Fair, jointly organised by JASSO and the Pune chapter of Mombusho Scholars Association of India (MOSAI), at Garware College। Around 1,000 city students visited the fair, which showcased 13 national universities from Japan.
“Considering the plus points of Pune, the embassy of Japan recommended JASSO to organise education fairs at Pune,” said Hikichi। This is the second year of the fair and the response so far is very good, he said. JASSO organises education fair in 20 cities of 10 Asian countries every year. Till 2006, Delhi was the only destination for JASSO in India to have education fair.
“Every year, around 2,000 students in Pune enroll for Japanese language classes। This is a huge number when compared to other parts of the country,” said Umesh Joshi, vice-president of MOSAI. “We requested JASSO to come to Pune and are glad they responded positively. It will help increase the number of students going to Japan for higher education,” said Joshi.
“So far, the number of Indian students going to Japan is very less — 480 last year — as compared to one lakh students of Chinese origin. There are very good opportunities in terms of employment after graduation in Japan. But many Indian students don’t know about it,” he said.
Hikichi pointed out that language was no barrier। “There are 30 universities in Japan which offer courses in English and there is no compulsion to learn Japanese. The Japanese government in fact encouraging universities to start delivering higher education in English,” he said.
Hikichi said the Japanese government had set the target of attracting 3 lakh international students to Japan till 2020। “We are definitely looking at India as one of the potential resource centres,” he said.
City to be the entry point to universities in Japan
Mombusho Scholars Association of India (MOSAI) has forwarded a proposal to Japan Students Service Organisation (JASSO) to make Pune a hub for conducting Entrance to Japanese Universities (EJU) tests।
“Presently, the EJU is conducted in Delhi। The examination is a gateway to Japanese universities for higher studies. Considering the students’ base in Pune, we have forwarded a proposal to JASSO to make Pune a centre for EJU,” said Joshi.
As a first step, MOSAI would start a training centre for students willing to take EJU examination। “We will start the training centre by January 2009. It has been observed that students find it difficult to clear EJU. The training centre will provide the required guidance,” he said.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/after-merci-pune-may-soon-learn-to-say-arigato/380247/
KANAGAWA / School for Indian kids to open
A school will open in Midori Ward, Yokohama, in April to accommodate the children of Indians working in information technology businesses who live in and around the city।
A growing number of Indian IT firms have been setting up Japan bases in the city, particularly in the Minato Mirai district, and the municipal government's Economic and Tourism Bureau hopes to attract more Indian businesses by improving the education environment for Indian children।
The school will be run by the India International School in Japan (IISJ), a nonprofit organization that opened the first Indian school in Tokyo in 2004 with 27 students। It now has about 350 students.
The Tokyo-based NPO has rented from the Yokohama municipal government the 1,200-square-meter third floor of the defunct Kirigaoka No। 3 Primary School in Midori Ward for the new school.
Children of Indians working for Indian companies in Yokohama will be able to take classes from the kindergarten- to high school-level। Indian curricula will be used so that children will not have fallen behind in their studies when they return to India. English and high-level mathematics--characteristic of Indian education--will be taught by Indian teachers. The children will also have an option of taking a course of Japanese as a second language.
The city has succeeded in attracting high-growth Indian businesses, such as Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro Technologies, both of which are among the top information technology companies in India. These two companies set up bases in the Minato Mirai district in 2002.
The number of Indians registered with the municipal government has been growing--about 1,300 compared with about 1,100 two years ago।
In 2006, Yokohama Mayor Hiroshi Nakada exchanged a memorandum with an NPO based in Singapore in connection with opening an Indian school in the city। However, the municipal government abandoned this plan as only about 20 students applied to enroll, only 10 percent of the planned number.
Assuming that the new school probably would have an enrollment of about 30 students in the first year, the IISJ plans to cut running costs by having teachers teach more than one subject.
V।B. Rupani, the school's vice principal, said he would use his connections to encourage Indian children to enroll at the school.
Citing the expectations of friends and colleagues in the school, he said he was determined to make the school a success and deepen relationships with the city।
Rupani, 61, is a former member of the board of directors of the Indian Merchants Association of Yokohama and the president of a trading firm।
For further information, in English only, call IISJ Tokyo School at (03) 3635-7850 .
(Nov। 1, 2008)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20081101TDY15001.htm
A growing number of Indian IT firms have been setting up Japan bases in the city, particularly in the Minato Mirai district, and the municipal government's Economic and Tourism Bureau hopes to attract more Indian businesses by improving the education environment for Indian children।
The school will be run by the India International School in Japan (IISJ), a nonprofit organization that opened the first Indian school in Tokyo in 2004 with 27 students। It now has about 350 students.
The Tokyo-based NPO has rented from the Yokohama municipal government the 1,200-square-meter third floor of the defunct Kirigaoka No। 3 Primary School in Midori Ward for the new school.
Children of Indians working for Indian companies in Yokohama will be able to take classes from the kindergarten- to high school-level। Indian curricula will be used so that children will not have fallen behind in their studies when they return to India. English and high-level mathematics--characteristic of Indian education--will be taught by Indian teachers. The children will also have an option of taking a course of Japanese as a second language.
The city has succeeded in attracting high-growth Indian businesses, such as Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro Technologies, both of which are among the top information technology companies in India. These two companies set up bases in the Minato Mirai district in 2002.
The number of Indians registered with the municipal government has been growing--about 1,300 compared with about 1,100 two years ago।
In 2006, Yokohama Mayor Hiroshi Nakada exchanged a memorandum with an NPO based in Singapore in connection with opening an Indian school in the city। However, the municipal government abandoned this plan as only about 20 students applied to enroll, only 10 percent of the planned number.
Assuming that the new school probably would have an enrollment of about 30 students in the first year, the IISJ plans to cut running costs by having teachers teach more than one subject.
V।B. Rupani, the school's vice principal, said he would use his connections to encourage Indian children to enroll at the school.
Citing the expectations of friends and colleagues in the school, he said he was determined to make the school a success and deepen relationships with the city।
Rupani, 61, is a former member of the board of directors of the Indian Merchants Association of Yokohama and the president of a trading firm।
For further information, in English only, call IISJ Tokyo School at (03) 3635-7850 .
(Nov। 1, 2008)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20081101TDY15001.htm
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Counseling for the job hunt
Foreign students in Japan can find it hard to secure work after graduation, so some companies are finding business opportunities in helping them hone their job-hunting skills। Pasona, a major employment agency, announced Oct. 14 that it has contracted with Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo to give career counseling to its 40-plus foreign third-year students, most of whom are studying liberal arts and economics.
Pasona will coach students on how to write their resumes, prepare them for job interviews and brief them on the Japanese and global job market, according to Kinuko Yamamoto, senior managing director at Pasona Group Inc।
"It's becoming more common for universities to outsource career-counseling services," Yamamoto said। "Universities are even supporting students long after graduation, so they will remain loyal to their alma mater and potentially come back as donors."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20081028a1.html
Pasona will coach students on how to write their resumes, prepare them for job interviews and brief them on the Japanese and global job market, according to Kinuko Yamamoto, senior managing director at Pasona Group Inc।
"It's becoming more common for universities to outsource career-counseling services," Yamamoto said। "Universities are even supporting students long after graduation, so they will remain loyal to their alma mater and potentially come back as donors."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20081028a1.html
Foreign students to fill the halls
Rie Yoshinaga had a wide range of colleges to choose from।
Globalization: Of the 6,000 students at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Kyushu, nearly half come from abroad, as does the faculty। Classes are taught both in English and Japanese.
Having studied at a high school in Canada for 10 months, Yoshinaga, an 18-year-old native of Oita Prefecture in the northeast of Kyushu region, is perhaps more globally minded than many of her peers। She says she seriously considered applying for Australian universities — one of the closest English-speaking countries to Oita — until she realized there was an international university right in her hometown।
Yoshinaga is now a freshman at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), whose 99,000-sq।-meter hilltop campus commands a panoramic view of Beppu Bay, and where nearly half of the 6,000 students come from abroad, representing 87 countries. Half of the faculty are foreigners, and classes are taught both in English and Japanese. Proficiency in Japanese is not required for international students seeking admission, but once they get in, international and domestic students undergo intensive language training in the two languages, so that when they graduate, they should all have perfect bilingual — or trilingual, depending on their native tongue — capabilities.
"I found this university attractive because, while it is located in Japan, it is international," Yoshinaga said, noting that she had no interest at all in other Japanese universities। "I thought that, if I studied here, I could study Japan and its relations with other countries, including the rest of Asia, whereas if I went to Australia, I would be looking at Asia from an Australian perspective."
In the eight years since its establishment, APU has built a solid reputation for providing a multicultural and multilingual learning environment for all its students — a rare example among Japanese universities, where foreign students are a tiny minority and often segregated into their own programs separate from local students। APU has also breathed new life into a dying onsen (hot-spring) town, by providing a yearly inflow of 6,000 young students who spend their cash locally, and through joint research projects with local governments and industries.
Universities such as APU are becoming increasingly popular in Japan as the population rapidly grays and the pool of college-age students shrinks। To survive, some universities are trying to attract more foreign students. The Japanese government decided in July to make the recruitment of foreign students a "national strategy," committing itself to raising the number of foreign students from the current 118,000 to 300,000 by 2020 in hopes of improving the level of research at universities and attracting talent from overseas. To that end, Japan plans to ease immigration procedures, increase the number of classes taught in English and promote September admissions.
"The environment surrounding higher education is rapidly changing, and competition among universities is becoming stiff worldwide," said Hiroshi Ota, an associate professor at Tokyo's Hitotsubashi University who researches the internationalization of colleges around the world। "It's like what's happening to (Japanese players and) the Major League Baseball. Unless Japanese universities make themselves globally competitive, their researchers will be recruited overseas at high salaries and Japanese universities will be left out in the cold."
Ota cites the emergence of global university rankings in recent years as a major factor fueling competition — and a sense of urgency — among Japanese schools। According to the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings 2008 announced Oct. 10, the University of Tokyo, regarded as Japan's equivalent to Harvard or Yale, was ranked 19th, down two places from last year.
Perhaps more disappointing for Japan's academic community, only three other universities — Kyoto University, Osaka University and the Tokyo Institute of Technology — cracked the top 100, while many colleges in the United States and the United Kingdom filled out the list.
In response, University of Tokyo Vice President Makoto Asashima said the latest THE-QS rankings do not reflect the "rapid changes" the university has implemented in the last few years to make itself more international। In the rankings, Japanese universities scored especially poorly in the ratios of international staff and students to local ones. But in 2005, the university set up an international relations division, whose staff has grown to 31 people. They have been coordinating international academic projects and student/ researcher exchange programs, Asashima said, noting that the university is doling out more scholarships and building new dorms to house 400 foreign students and researchers.
Ota of Hitotsubashi University also says such rankings are not comprehensive in their measurements। For one thing, the THE-QS evaluates the quality of research, not the quality of education or instruction, he says.
Ranking issues aside, Japan still can do a lot more to make its colleges attractive to students of all nationalities, experts say। A key indicator of a college's competitiveness is its ability to get its graduates good jobs. Japan has not been very aggressive in hiring foreign college graduates, though the trend is shifting.
Nearly 10 percent of 3,244 companies surveyed last year by the semigovernmental Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training report that they have hired foreigners who studied at Japanese universities in the last three years, a majority of which said they did so because they wanted to tap "excellent resources regardless of their nationality." Eighty percent of companies with experience hiring international students said they would like to hire such candidates again.
Still, job seekers' needs are surely not being fully met (see sidebar)। According to a June 2007 report compiled by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, while nearly 40 percent of foreigners who have graduated from Japanese universities hope to find employment in Japan, only 25 percent have landed such positions. Pasona's own research of foreign students turning up at the company's job fair shows more and more are interested in finding work in Japan or with Japanese companies, company officials said.
Besides the current dearth of solid opportunities for foreign graduates in Japan, there are questions about schools themselves relying on such students to keep up enrollment। APU president Monte Cassim warns that universities should not look at foreign students merely as a marketing strategy.
"The presidents of many universities I have talked to around the world see internationalization of higher education in the context of finding new student markets," said Cassim, a Sri Lankan native who came to Japan as a student more than 35 years ago। "But if your only goal is to find new markets, why run a university?
"To me, the mission of universities is to find middle-to-long-term solutions to problems in society, and to keep sending out a message about what kind of society we should have। Without such a vision or an aspiration, universities would wander away from the right path."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20081028a1.html
Globalization: Of the 6,000 students at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Kyushu, nearly half come from abroad, as does the faculty। Classes are taught both in English and Japanese.
Having studied at a high school in Canada for 10 months, Yoshinaga, an 18-year-old native of Oita Prefecture in the northeast of Kyushu region, is perhaps more globally minded than many of her peers। She says she seriously considered applying for Australian universities — one of the closest English-speaking countries to Oita — until she realized there was an international university right in her hometown।
Yoshinaga is now a freshman at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), whose 99,000-sq।-meter hilltop campus commands a panoramic view of Beppu Bay, and where nearly half of the 6,000 students come from abroad, representing 87 countries. Half of the faculty are foreigners, and classes are taught both in English and Japanese. Proficiency in Japanese is not required for international students seeking admission, but once they get in, international and domestic students undergo intensive language training in the two languages, so that when they graduate, they should all have perfect bilingual — or trilingual, depending on their native tongue — capabilities.
"I found this university attractive because, while it is located in Japan, it is international," Yoshinaga said, noting that she had no interest at all in other Japanese universities। "I thought that, if I studied here, I could study Japan and its relations with other countries, including the rest of Asia, whereas if I went to Australia, I would be looking at Asia from an Australian perspective."
In the eight years since its establishment, APU has built a solid reputation for providing a multicultural and multilingual learning environment for all its students — a rare example among Japanese universities, where foreign students are a tiny minority and often segregated into their own programs separate from local students। APU has also breathed new life into a dying onsen (hot-spring) town, by providing a yearly inflow of 6,000 young students who spend their cash locally, and through joint research projects with local governments and industries.
Universities such as APU are becoming increasingly popular in Japan as the population rapidly grays and the pool of college-age students shrinks। To survive, some universities are trying to attract more foreign students. The Japanese government decided in July to make the recruitment of foreign students a "national strategy," committing itself to raising the number of foreign students from the current 118,000 to 300,000 by 2020 in hopes of improving the level of research at universities and attracting talent from overseas. To that end, Japan plans to ease immigration procedures, increase the number of classes taught in English and promote September admissions.
"The environment surrounding higher education is rapidly changing, and competition among universities is becoming stiff worldwide," said Hiroshi Ota, an associate professor at Tokyo's Hitotsubashi University who researches the internationalization of colleges around the world। "It's like what's happening to (Japanese players and) the Major League Baseball. Unless Japanese universities make themselves globally competitive, their researchers will be recruited overseas at high salaries and Japanese universities will be left out in the cold."
Ota cites the emergence of global university rankings in recent years as a major factor fueling competition — and a sense of urgency — among Japanese schools। According to the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings 2008 announced Oct. 10, the University of Tokyo, regarded as Japan's equivalent to Harvard or Yale, was ranked 19th, down two places from last year.
Perhaps more disappointing for Japan's academic community, only three other universities — Kyoto University, Osaka University and the Tokyo Institute of Technology — cracked the top 100, while many colleges in the United States and the United Kingdom filled out the list.
In response, University of Tokyo Vice President Makoto Asashima said the latest THE-QS rankings do not reflect the "rapid changes" the university has implemented in the last few years to make itself more international। In the rankings, Japanese universities scored especially poorly in the ratios of international staff and students to local ones. But in 2005, the university set up an international relations division, whose staff has grown to 31 people. They have been coordinating international academic projects and student/ researcher exchange programs, Asashima said, noting that the university is doling out more scholarships and building new dorms to house 400 foreign students and researchers.
Ota of Hitotsubashi University also says such rankings are not comprehensive in their measurements। For one thing, the THE-QS evaluates the quality of research, not the quality of education or instruction, he says.
Ranking issues aside, Japan still can do a lot more to make its colleges attractive to students of all nationalities, experts say। A key indicator of a college's competitiveness is its ability to get its graduates good jobs. Japan has not been very aggressive in hiring foreign college graduates, though the trend is shifting.
Nearly 10 percent of 3,244 companies surveyed last year by the semigovernmental Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training report that they have hired foreigners who studied at Japanese universities in the last three years, a majority of which said they did so because they wanted to tap "excellent resources regardless of their nationality." Eighty percent of companies with experience hiring international students said they would like to hire such candidates again.
Still, job seekers' needs are surely not being fully met (see sidebar)। According to a June 2007 report compiled by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, while nearly 40 percent of foreigners who have graduated from Japanese universities hope to find employment in Japan, only 25 percent have landed such positions. Pasona's own research of foreign students turning up at the company's job fair shows more and more are interested in finding work in Japan or with Japanese companies, company officials said.
Besides the current dearth of solid opportunities for foreign graduates in Japan, there are questions about schools themselves relying on such students to keep up enrollment। APU president Monte Cassim warns that universities should not look at foreign students merely as a marketing strategy.
"The presidents of many universities I have talked to around the world see internationalization of higher education in the context of finding new student markets," said Cassim, a Sri Lankan native who came to Japan as a student more than 35 years ago। "But if your only goal is to find new markets, why run a university?
"To me, the mission of universities is to find middle-to-long-term solutions to problems in society, and to keep sending out a message about what kind of society we should have। Without such a vision or an aspiration, universities would wander away from the right path."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20081028a1.html
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Japanese Language Proficiency Test
OCTOBER 28, 2008 09:12
Universities around the world are in intense competition to attract foreign students, with a soaring number of students going abroad to study in this global era। The United States is the most favored destination. Though many want to return home after finishing their studies, some remain in America to contribute to its economic and scientific development. Drawing the world`s best and brightest students plays a key role in advancing a country. In the past, the United States attracted 60 percent of overseas students, but now faces a decline in university enrollment as higher education undergoes rapid globalization.
Attracting foreign students is more than recruiting talented scholars because it generates a profitable industry। When attracting overseas students, their spending on tuition fees, living expenses and visits by their families benefits the host country’s service revenues. Universities can enhance their image while earning profits from tuition. For this reason, a number of governments are keen to treat higher education as an industry. A case in point is Goethe House, or Campus France.
Japan is far ahead of other Asian countries in attracting foreign students। In 1983, then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone unveiled a plan on admitting 100,000 foreign students. Twenty five years later, that number has risen to 120,000. One problem, however, is that Chinese students accounted for 74 percent and Korean students 14 percent of Japan’s foreign students. The language barrier made it difficult to evaluate a student’s scholastic ability. To resolve the problem, Japan adopted two languages for use in administering the Japanese Language Proficiency Test for those who want to attend university in Japan.
In the face of declining student enrollment and growing financial difficulty, Korean universities is trying to attract foreign students। The number of overseas students reached 63,952 in April this year. The government announced the “Study Korea” project aimed to attract 100,000 foreign students by 2010. Korea has a similar problem with Japan in that most foreign students are from China attracted mainly by relatively cheap tuition. The Lee administration should pay attention to the Japanese government’s diversification of its language test to attract more foreign students.
Editorial Writer Chung Sung-hee, (।com">shchung@donga।com)
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=100000&biid=2008102877588
Universities around the world are in intense competition to attract foreign students, with a soaring number of students going abroad to study in this global era। The United States is the most favored destination. Though many want to return home after finishing their studies, some remain in America to contribute to its economic and scientific development. Drawing the world`s best and brightest students plays a key role in advancing a country. In the past, the United States attracted 60 percent of overseas students, but now faces a decline in university enrollment as higher education undergoes rapid globalization.
Attracting foreign students is more than recruiting talented scholars because it generates a profitable industry। When attracting overseas students, their spending on tuition fees, living expenses and visits by their families benefits the host country’s service revenues. Universities can enhance their image while earning profits from tuition. For this reason, a number of governments are keen to treat higher education as an industry. A case in point is Goethe House, or Campus France.
Japan is far ahead of other Asian countries in attracting foreign students। In 1983, then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone unveiled a plan on admitting 100,000 foreign students. Twenty five years later, that number has risen to 120,000. One problem, however, is that Chinese students accounted for 74 percent and Korean students 14 percent of Japan’s foreign students. The language barrier made it difficult to evaluate a student’s scholastic ability. To resolve the problem, Japan adopted two languages for use in administering the Japanese Language Proficiency Test for those who want to attend university in Japan.
In the face of declining student enrollment and growing financial difficulty, Korean universities is trying to attract foreign students। The number of overseas students reached 63,952 in April this year. The government announced the “Study Korea” project aimed to attract 100,000 foreign students by 2010. Korea has a similar problem with Japan in that most foreign students are from China attracted mainly by relatively cheap tuition. The Lee administration should pay attention to the Japanese government’s diversification of its language test to attract more foreign students.
Editorial Writer Chung Sung-hee, (।com">shchung@donga।com)
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=100000&biid=2008102877588
Monday, October 27, 2008
JAPANESE SCHOOLS MUST ATTRACT FOREIGN TALENT
As the world's best and brightest minds become a global commodity, U.S. and European universities are vying for the top students from abroad.
Universities in the United States are the most popular destination for elite students from China and other Asian countries. For Japanese universities to catch up with their U.S. and European counterparts, a drastic reexamination of policies on foreign students is necessary.
The government has outlined measures to increase the number of students from abroad from the current 120,000 to 300,000 a year by 2020.
If undergraduate and graduate schools are increasingly globalized and, consequently, research at those institutions is further invigorated, it will help advance the nation's science and technology as well as make Japanese industry more competitive in the global marketplace.
Among Western countries, the United States accommodates about 580,000 students from overseas, while France and Germany, both non-English speaking nations, accept about 250,000. The figures far surpass Japan's 120,000 foreign students.
The number of students accepted from abroad can be judged as a barometer of the attractiveness of universities of each country.
Under the measures to increase the number of students from overseas to 300,000, the government will select 30 universities as the hub of globalization of the nation's higher education system. These schools will award diplomas for courses with classes basically taught only in English and heighten educational standards by hiring more non-Japanese faculty.
Last year, the government began an educational program under the government-initiated Career Development Program for Foreign Students from Asia.
Under the program, universities and participating companies offer specialized educational classes that meet corporate needs, including business Japanese classes and practical training at companies, and students who take the classes are generally hired by the participating companies.
We believe further strengthening such industry-university cooperation also is necessary.
Another important part of the government's measures include promotion of Japanese language education overseas and centralization of international contacts for those who wish to study in Japan.
Deeper discussions should be held immediately to bring such ideas to fruition।
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93KL6O80&show_article=1
Universities in the United States are the most popular destination for elite students from China and other Asian countries. For Japanese universities to catch up with their U.S. and European counterparts, a drastic reexamination of policies on foreign students is necessary.
The government has outlined measures to increase the number of students from abroad from the current 120,000 to 300,000 a year by 2020.
If undergraduate and graduate schools are increasingly globalized and, consequently, research at those institutions is further invigorated, it will help advance the nation's science and technology as well as make Japanese industry more competitive in the global marketplace.
Among Western countries, the United States accommodates about 580,000 students from overseas, while France and Germany, both non-English speaking nations, accept about 250,000. The figures far surpass Japan's 120,000 foreign students.
The number of students accepted from abroad can be judged as a barometer of the attractiveness of universities of each country.
Under the measures to increase the number of students from overseas to 300,000, the government will select 30 universities as the hub of globalization of the nation's higher education system. These schools will award diplomas for courses with classes basically taught only in English and heighten educational standards by hiring more non-Japanese faculty.
Last year, the government began an educational program under the government-initiated Career Development Program for Foreign Students from Asia.
Under the program, universities and participating companies offer specialized educational classes that meet corporate needs, including business Japanese classes and practical training at companies, and students who take the classes are generally hired by the participating companies.
We believe further strengthening such industry-university cooperation also is necessary.
Another important part of the government's measures include promotion of Japanese language education overseas and centralization of international contacts for those who wish to study in Japan.
Deeper discussions should be held immediately to bring such ideas to fruition।
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93KL6O80&show_article=1
Pachinko academy draws in students
A stroll around Shinjuku Station will reveal plenty of pachinko parlors emitting noises of rapidly firing steel balls to the sound of pounding dance tunes। Such clamor is music to the ears of Ei Yoshida, president of G&E Business School — a pachinko academy to learn all there is to know about what is basically an upright pinball game.
“Our students either want to change their career,” says Yoshida from his third floor office on Shinjuku-dori Avenue, “or they are already working in pachinko and need to learn more।”
Established in 2006, G&E Business School annually instructs 200 students, aged between 19 and 25, to work in this massive industry। Although it has recently been facing a downturn, the industry still remains highly dynamic.
Classes include such subjects as programming of the machines, selecting background animations, marketing and management. Live machines in rows make the classroom look like a real parlor.
“When the students are finished here,” Yoshida says, “they go on to work at companies that produce the machines or in pachinko advertising।” The G&E brochure shows photos of graduates who have moved on to such heavyweight machine manufacturers such as Sankyo and Sammy. The president who, two decades ago, worked as a low-level employee at a parlor, sees pachinko as a business that is very unique to Japan’s landscape.
“As long as the site is 50 meters away from a school or hospital,” he says, “a parlor can be established anywhere।”
To play is easy। Players turn the machine’s dial to launch dozens of balls upward. The silver spheres then tumble downward through mazes of nails and into certain slots or gates that can yield many more balls. The machines are set at one of six cycles, each of which generates a different rate of payout.
Patrons cannot convert the balls to currency inside the parlor। (Only electronics, toiletries, and other small items are available for exchange.) Obtaining cash is done via a middleman at a satellite office away from the parlor. This extra step, by law, makes this form of gambling — a word Yoshida does not prefer — technically legal.
The origins of pachinko probably date back to a horizontal board game imported by an Osaka company from the United States in 1924। In 1948, the first parlor opened in Nagoya following the enactment of the Entertainment Establishments Control Law, under which the game was classified as a form of amusement rather than gambling.
The industry employs 300,000 people at its 14,000 parlors and in 2006, generated 25 trillion yen in turnover। This figure eclipses those of the lotteries, boat racing, horse racing, and other types of gambling combined. Maruhan, Japan’s largest hall operator which also dabbles in bowling and food services, collected revenues of 1.8 trillion yen for the term ending March 31, 2008. Last year, Forbes included two pachinko company presidents, Kunio Busujima of Sankyo and Han Chang-Woo of Maruhan, in their list of “Japan’s 40 Richest.”
While the industry is a sizeable force, overall revenue is down from its peak of 30 trillion yen in 1995। Yoshida, however, does not foresee a problem. “Before, without making much effort,” he says, “a parlor could make money. But now, a person not making any effort is losing business. It’s the basics of capitalism. There is a lot of competition.”
Along these lines, the industry is attempting to rid itself of the seedy, gang-ridden reputation it has acquired over the years and woo women into its halls by providing a clean and pleasant environment। Brand-name goods are increasingly being offered as prizes, and the romantic Korean drama “Fuyu no Sonata,” a large hit with Japanese women, has had its characters appear as background images on numerous machines by maker Kyoraku in recent months.
Yoshida hopes to soon expand his school to include branches in the cities of Nagoya and Osaka। “When I started in pachinko,” he says, “people thought I was entering the world of gangsters. But this is now a legitimate business.”
http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/pachinko-academy-draws-in-students
“Our students either want to change their career,” says Yoshida from his third floor office on Shinjuku-dori Avenue, “or they are already working in pachinko and need to learn more।”
Established in 2006, G&E Business School annually instructs 200 students, aged between 19 and 25, to work in this massive industry। Although it has recently been facing a downturn, the industry still remains highly dynamic.
Classes include such subjects as programming of the machines, selecting background animations, marketing and management. Live machines in rows make the classroom look like a real parlor.
“When the students are finished here,” Yoshida says, “they go on to work at companies that produce the machines or in pachinko advertising।” The G&E brochure shows photos of graduates who have moved on to such heavyweight machine manufacturers such as Sankyo and Sammy. The president who, two decades ago, worked as a low-level employee at a parlor, sees pachinko as a business that is very unique to Japan’s landscape.
“As long as the site is 50 meters away from a school or hospital,” he says, “a parlor can be established anywhere।”
To play is easy। Players turn the machine’s dial to launch dozens of balls upward. The silver spheres then tumble downward through mazes of nails and into certain slots or gates that can yield many more balls. The machines are set at one of six cycles, each of which generates a different rate of payout.
Patrons cannot convert the balls to currency inside the parlor। (Only electronics, toiletries, and other small items are available for exchange.) Obtaining cash is done via a middleman at a satellite office away from the parlor. This extra step, by law, makes this form of gambling — a word Yoshida does not prefer — technically legal.
The origins of pachinko probably date back to a horizontal board game imported by an Osaka company from the United States in 1924। In 1948, the first parlor opened in Nagoya following the enactment of the Entertainment Establishments Control Law, under which the game was classified as a form of amusement rather than gambling.
The industry employs 300,000 people at its 14,000 parlors and in 2006, generated 25 trillion yen in turnover। This figure eclipses those of the lotteries, boat racing, horse racing, and other types of gambling combined. Maruhan, Japan’s largest hall operator which also dabbles in bowling and food services, collected revenues of 1.8 trillion yen for the term ending March 31, 2008. Last year, Forbes included two pachinko company presidents, Kunio Busujima of Sankyo and Han Chang-Woo of Maruhan, in their list of “Japan’s 40 Richest.”
While the industry is a sizeable force, overall revenue is down from its peak of 30 trillion yen in 1995। Yoshida, however, does not foresee a problem. “Before, without making much effort,” he says, “a parlor could make money. But now, a person not making any effort is losing business. It’s the basics of capitalism. There is a lot of competition.”
Along these lines, the industry is attempting to rid itself of the seedy, gang-ridden reputation it has acquired over the years and woo women into its halls by providing a clean and pleasant environment। Brand-name goods are increasingly being offered as prizes, and the romantic Korean drama “Fuyu no Sonata,” a large hit with Japanese women, has had its characters appear as background images on numerous machines by maker Kyoraku in recent months.
Yoshida hopes to soon expand his school to include branches in the cities of Nagoya and Osaka। “When I started in pachinko,” he says, “people thought I was entering the world of gangsters. But this is now a legitimate business.”
http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/pachinko-academy-draws-in-students
Chinese, Korean to be added for intl students' test
Chinese and Korean languages will be added to the current examination to evaluate the academic abilities of foreign students who would like to study in Japan, the Education, Science and Technology Ministry said।
The plan, which the ministry agreed on Saturday, aims to promote the early realization of the government's effort to increase the number of international students in Japan to 300,000। It takes into account the fact that Chinese and South Korean students account for nearly 90 percent of those taking the Examination for Japanese University Admission for International Students (EJU). The ministry hopes to further increase the number of students from both countries.
Although the examination has been available only in Japanese and English, the overwhelming majority of students taking the test are Chinese and South Korean। Of 19,206 students who took the examination in June 2008, Chinese students accounted for 74 percent and South Korean students 14 percent.
The ministry also decided to adopt the two languages to evaluate the students' basic scholastic abilities beyond the language barrier, according to the sources.
(Oct। 27, 2008)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20081027TDY03302.htm
The plan, which the ministry agreed on Saturday, aims to promote the early realization of the government's effort to increase the number of international students in Japan to 300,000। It takes into account the fact that Chinese and South Korean students account for nearly 90 percent of those taking the Examination for Japanese University Admission for International Students (EJU). The ministry hopes to further increase the number of students from both countries.
Although the examination has been available only in Japanese and English, the overwhelming majority of students taking the test are Chinese and South Korean। Of 19,206 students who took the examination in June 2008, Chinese students accounted for 74 percent and South Korean students 14 percent.
The ministry also decided to adopt the two languages to evaluate the students' basic scholastic abilities beyond the language barrier, according to the sources.
(Oct। 27, 2008)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20081027TDY03302.htm
Sunday, August 03, 2008
More than 10,000 foreign students find jobs in Japan
TOKYO, July 29 (AP) - (Kyodo)—The number of foreign students who graduated from Japanese colleges and graduate schools and found jobs in Japan came to 10,262 in 2007, up 24 percent from the previous year and exceeding the 10,000 line for the first time, the Justice Ministry's Immigration Bureau said Tuesday।
The number stayed below 3,000 until 2000, and a bureau official attributed the increase partly to expansion in employment in information technology-related fields।
Among the 10,262, students from Asian countries accounted for 97 percent, with those from China at 7,539, followed by those from South Korea at 1,109, Taiwan at 282, Bangladesh at 138 and Vietnam at 131, according to the bureau।
Some 120,000 foreign students are currently studying in Japan. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology came out with a plan Tuesday to help them find jobs in Japan after graduation.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D927GU5O2&show_article=1
The number stayed below 3,000 until 2000, and a bureau official attributed the increase partly to expansion in employment in information technology-related fields।
Among the 10,262, students from Asian countries accounted for 97 percent, with those from China at 7,539, followed by those from South Korea at 1,109, Taiwan at 282, Bangladesh at 138 and Vietnam at 131, according to the bureau।
Some 120,000 foreign students are currently studying in Japan. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology came out with a plan Tuesday to help them find jobs in Japan after graduation.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D927GU5O2&show_article=1
Friday, May 09, 2008
China, Japan vow to promote youths exchanges
TOKYO, May 8 (Xinhua) -- China and Japan pledged to make contributions to effectively promote exchanges between the youths of the two countries, according to a joint press communique issued here Wednesday।
The communique was issued on boosting exchanges and cooperation between the two countries as measures to implement a joint statement signed after talks between Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda।
According to the communique issued during Hu's state visit to Japan, the two sides are satisfied with the successful inauguration of the China-Japan Friendly Exchange Year of Youth in 2008, and agreed to launch exchanges of about 4,000 Chinese and Japanese young people each year in the next four years।
China and Japan reached consensus on constantly promoting the friendly exchanges between the youths of the two countries and called on both sides to strengthen cooperation on the issue.
The two sides also agreed that it is of vital significance to further strengthen exchange between the young and middle-aged cadres of the two countries and they will continually support exchange and cooperation in this field, the communique said।
This year is the China-Japan Friendly Exchange Year of Youth set by leaders of the two countries and marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Japan-China Peace and Friendship Treaty।
President Hu arrived here on Tuesday for a five-day "warm-spring" state visit, the first trip by a Chinese president to Japan in a decade।
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-05/08/content_8130481.htm
The communique was issued on boosting exchanges and cooperation between the two countries as measures to implement a joint statement signed after talks between Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda।
According to the communique issued during Hu's state visit to Japan, the two sides are satisfied with the successful inauguration of the China-Japan Friendly Exchange Year of Youth in 2008, and agreed to launch exchanges of about 4,000 Chinese and Japanese young people each year in the next four years।
China and Japan reached consensus on constantly promoting the friendly exchanges between the youths of the two countries and called on both sides to strengthen cooperation on the issue.
The two sides also agreed that it is of vital significance to further strengthen exchange between the young and middle-aged cadres of the two countries and they will continually support exchange and cooperation in this field, the communique said।
This year is the China-Japan Friendly Exchange Year of Youth set by leaders of the two countries and marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Japan-China Peace and Friendship Treaty।
President Hu arrived here on Tuesday for a five-day "warm-spring" state visit, the first trip by a Chinese president to Japan in a decade।
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-05/08/content_8130481.htm
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Class Dismissed
Hisashi Kubodera could have had his pick of universities. But the Japanese student, who speaks three languages and has an aptitude for applied mathematics, knew that getting a degree in his home country was the last thing he wanted — Japanese schools are just too easy, he says. Now a freshman at Yale, he recalls sitting in on a lecture at a Hokkaido-based college to get a feel for the place. The class was "so boring and terrible," Kubodera says, he can't even remember the lecture topic. "In Japan, if you get into college you can graduate no matter what," he says. "In the U.S., it's hard to get in and harder to graduate."
Kubodera may be an exceptional student, but his decision to seek higher education overseas is all too common among Japanese youth these days. Japan's universities have fallen on hard times, their reputations so dented that many ambitious students no longer consider them even as a last resort.
Beset by international competition, hampered by outmoded curriculums and cloistered, change-resistant administrations, universities are seeing enrollment and tuition revenues decline. The total number of higher-ed students in Japan fell from 2.87 million in 2005 to 2.83 million last year, a loss of some 37,000, according to Japan's Education Ministry.
Education experts say that nearly 40% of universities and colleges can't fill student quotas, forcing some schools to relax admission standards and others to merge or close.
This troubling trend is partially due to Japan's chronically low birth rate. The country's student body is shrinking. The number of 18-year-olds — a group that accounts for 90% of first-year college students — plunged 35% between 1990 and 2007, from 2 million to 1.3 million, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Simply put, there are fewer and fewer Japanese students to support a system that was built for heavier class loads.
As a result, Japan's famously Darwinian educational environment, in which high school students crammed day and night so they could beat their peers on standardized tests and get into good universities, is fading. Instead, even average students now breeze into colleges that are becoming less selective about who fills their hallowed lecture halls.
Educators have a phrase for this phenomenon: daigaku zennyu jidai, which literally means "an age when all are accepted to college." Big schools such as Tokyo University, which receives 40% of its funding from the government, are trying to goose head count by establishing more graduate schools and by adding postgraduate courses for working professionals and retirees.
Smaller, underfunded colleges must take more drastic action. For example, Osaka University and Osaka University of Foreign Studies merged in October; two other Osaka schools — Kwansei Gakuin University and Seiwa College, both of which have been around for more than a century — are slated to combine next year.
The problems facing the country's higher-education system run deeper than mere demographics, however. Japan may be the world's second largest economy with a reputation for technological prowess, but its schools aren't making the grade. Critics say student bodies are stultifyingly homogeneous, teaching methods are obsolete, and there's a dearth of courses taught in English, the lingua franca of international education and commerce. "Japan's schools are third-rate by international standards," says Robert Dujarric, director of Temple University's Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies.
In the 2007 Times Higher Education Supplement, an influential U.K.-based annual survey of universities all over the world, only four Japanese universities ranked in the top 100, compared with 37 from the U.S. and 19 from the U.K. "If your aim is a Nobel Prize in chemistry," Dujarric says, "you don't come to Japan."
This is another big reason why Japan is struggling to fill its classrooms. To offset dwindling enrollment, faculties need to reach out globally to attract foreign students as well as top-notch foreign teachers, who bring with them the ability to win lucrative research grants. But foreigners who opt to study in Japan sometimes regret their decision. Martin Rieger, a German attending Aoyama Gakuin University in central Tokyo, says that after one semester, he worries that he's falling behind his peers at his home university near Luxembourg.
"I'm writing about topics and issues that will help no way in my future," says Rieger, 26. Bruce Stronach, president of Yokohama City University and the first Westerner to head a Japanese public university, says Japan is "not on the radar screen" of overseas students.
These problems are well known. Kiyoshi Shimizu, director general of the Education Ministry's higher-education bureau, acknowledged shortcomings in the system during recent meetings to establish an OECD-administered mechanism for measuring the performance of universities worldwide.
Some schools are trying to adapt. In November, Tokyo University — or Todai, the 130-year-old "Harvard of Japan" — partnered with Yale to increase its visibility abroad. Tokyo University President Hiroshi Komiyama says he wants to double the proportion of graduate courses taught in English to 20%. (About 8% of Todai's students are foreigners, compared with an average of 3% for all Japanese universities and colleges.)
Another campus that's reforming is Tokyo's Waseda University. Four years ago, Waseda launched a new School of International Liberal Studies as a testing ground for "enforced artificial internationalism," as Paul Snowden, the school's dean, describes it. All classes are taught in English. The school as a matter of policy recruits one-third of its students from overseas, from countries as far away as Iceland and Uganda. The strategy seems to be working. Since it opened, the program has seen enrollment grow at an annual average rate of 15%. "This school is dragging Waseda kicking and screaming into the 21st century," Snowden says.
But Japan is a country that clings to tradition and carefully guards its culture. Teaching in English and courting outsiders remains anathema to many faculty members and administrators. "The structure of universities and research institutes is so intransigent that it's hard to implement solutions," says Stronach, the Yokohama City University president. "These reforms are crucial right now, and yet there's an awful lot of dithering going on."
Japan dithers at its peril. Nations such as South Korea are building education systems geared to produce an internationally competitive workforce. "Our students need to globalize to be leaders," says Yuichiro Anzai, president of Keio University, a top private university in Tokyo. Do they have an international outlook today? "Not yet," Anzai says. "We are lacking a sense of the crisis that we face," says Akiyoshi Yonezawa, an education expert at the Center for the Advancement of Higher Education at Tohoku University in Sendai. "This society is becoming more and more disadvantaged year by year." For Japan, the "age when all are accepted to college" may turn out to be less carefree than it sounds.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1719890,00.html
Kubodera may be an exceptional student, but his decision to seek higher education overseas is all too common among Japanese youth these days. Japan's universities have fallen on hard times, their reputations so dented that many ambitious students no longer consider them even as a last resort.
Beset by international competition, hampered by outmoded curriculums and cloistered, change-resistant administrations, universities are seeing enrollment and tuition revenues decline. The total number of higher-ed students in Japan fell from 2.87 million in 2005 to 2.83 million last year, a loss of some 37,000, according to Japan's Education Ministry.
Education experts say that nearly 40% of universities and colleges can't fill student quotas, forcing some schools to relax admission standards and others to merge or close.
This troubling trend is partially due to Japan's chronically low birth rate. The country's student body is shrinking. The number of 18-year-olds — a group that accounts for 90% of first-year college students — plunged 35% between 1990 and 2007, from 2 million to 1.3 million, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Simply put, there are fewer and fewer Japanese students to support a system that was built for heavier class loads.
As a result, Japan's famously Darwinian educational environment, in which high school students crammed day and night so they could beat their peers on standardized tests and get into good universities, is fading. Instead, even average students now breeze into colleges that are becoming less selective about who fills their hallowed lecture halls.
Educators have a phrase for this phenomenon: daigaku zennyu jidai, which literally means "an age when all are accepted to college." Big schools such as Tokyo University, which receives 40% of its funding from the government, are trying to goose head count by establishing more graduate schools and by adding postgraduate courses for working professionals and retirees.
Smaller, underfunded colleges must take more drastic action. For example, Osaka University and Osaka University of Foreign Studies merged in October; two other Osaka schools — Kwansei Gakuin University and Seiwa College, both of which have been around for more than a century — are slated to combine next year.
The problems facing the country's higher-education system run deeper than mere demographics, however. Japan may be the world's second largest economy with a reputation for technological prowess, but its schools aren't making the grade. Critics say student bodies are stultifyingly homogeneous, teaching methods are obsolete, and there's a dearth of courses taught in English, the lingua franca of international education and commerce. "Japan's schools are third-rate by international standards," says Robert Dujarric, director of Temple University's Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies.
In the 2007 Times Higher Education Supplement, an influential U.K.-based annual survey of universities all over the world, only four Japanese universities ranked in the top 100, compared with 37 from the U.S. and 19 from the U.K. "If your aim is a Nobel Prize in chemistry," Dujarric says, "you don't come to Japan."
This is another big reason why Japan is struggling to fill its classrooms. To offset dwindling enrollment, faculties need to reach out globally to attract foreign students as well as top-notch foreign teachers, who bring with them the ability to win lucrative research grants. But foreigners who opt to study in Japan sometimes regret their decision. Martin Rieger, a German attending Aoyama Gakuin University in central Tokyo, says that after one semester, he worries that he's falling behind his peers at his home university near Luxembourg.
"I'm writing about topics and issues that will help no way in my future," says Rieger, 26. Bruce Stronach, president of Yokohama City University and the first Westerner to head a Japanese public university, says Japan is "not on the radar screen" of overseas students.
These problems are well known. Kiyoshi Shimizu, director general of the Education Ministry's higher-education bureau, acknowledged shortcomings in the system during recent meetings to establish an OECD-administered mechanism for measuring the performance of universities worldwide.
Some schools are trying to adapt. In November, Tokyo University — or Todai, the 130-year-old "Harvard of Japan" — partnered with Yale to increase its visibility abroad. Tokyo University President Hiroshi Komiyama says he wants to double the proportion of graduate courses taught in English to 20%. (About 8% of Todai's students are foreigners, compared with an average of 3% for all Japanese universities and colleges.)
Another campus that's reforming is Tokyo's Waseda University. Four years ago, Waseda launched a new School of International Liberal Studies as a testing ground for "enforced artificial internationalism," as Paul Snowden, the school's dean, describes it. All classes are taught in English. The school as a matter of policy recruits one-third of its students from overseas, from countries as far away as Iceland and Uganda. The strategy seems to be working. Since it opened, the program has seen enrollment grow at an annual average rate of 15%. "This school is dragging Waseda kicking and screaming into the 21st century," Snowden says.
But Japan is a country that clings to tradition and carefully guards its culture. Teaching in English and courting outsiders remains anathema to many faculty members and administrators. "The structure of universities and research institutes is so intransigent that it's hard to implement solutions," says Stronach, the Yokohama City University president. "These reforms are crucial right now, and yet there's an awful lot of dithering going on."
Japan dithers at its peril. Nations such as South Korea are building education systems geared to produce an internationally competitive workforce. "Our students need to globalize to be leaders," says Yuichiro Anzai, president of Keio University, a top private university in Tokyo. Do they have an international outlook today? "Not yet," Anzai says. "We are lacking a sense of the crisis that we face," says Akiyoshi Yonezawa, an education expert at the Center for the Advancement of Higher Education at Tohoku University in Sendai. "This society is becoming more and more disadvantaged year by year." For Japan, the "age when all are accepted to college" may turn out to be less carefree than it sounds.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1719890,00.html
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Education, Career, Automotive and Real Estate Sites See Gains to Start the New Year
TOKYO, JAPAN, February 29, 2008 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its January 2008 rankings of the largest and fastest-growing Internet properties and site categories in Japan, based on data from the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service. January saw increased visitation to education, career, automotive and real estate sites as many people in Japan focused their Internet activity on planning for the New Year. Several news sites, including J-Cast.com, Sponichi.com, and Jiji.com, saw significant gains in January, with elections in Osaka, the Sumo wrestling tournament, and the Chinese food scandal being major topics in the news.
“The New Year marks a time when the people of Japan begin planning and looking ahead, especially to the beginning of the new school and job year in April,” said Maru Sato, Managing Director of comScore Japan. “Real estate sites also saw gains as visitors sought housing information for both buying and selling.”
About comScore comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/boilerplate
http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2082
“The New Year marks a time when the people of Japan begin planning and looking ahead, especially to the beginning of the new school and job year in April,” said Maru Sato, Managing Director of comScore Japan. “Real estate sites also saw gains as visitors sought housing information for both buying and selling.”
About comScore comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/boilerplate
http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2082
Japanese surfers are interested in education
There is more going on with Japanese surfers than visiting social networking or media websites. As the New Year moves full steam ahead, Japanese surfers have become very interested in bettering themselves through education and career planning.
by Kristina Knight
“The New Year marks a time when the people of Japan begin planning and looking ahead, especially to the beginning of the new school and job year in April,” said Maru Sato, Managing Director of comScore Japan. “Real estate sites also saw gains as visitors sought housing information for both buying and selling.”
According to a new report from comScore, training and education websites were the highest traffic gainers in January, growing from 1.7 million users to 2.6 million. This is a 47% increase in traffic year over year.
Real estate websites grew from 3.5 million users to 5.2 million users (45% increase) while Business/Finance and News/Media websites tied for the third top gaining sites moving from 7.8 million users to 10.3 million users. That is a 31% increase for both categories.
Among the Top 10 Gaining properties were J-Cast.com with 82% increased traffic in January. Sponichi.co.jp saw 65% growth for January while Jiji.com saw 28% growth and Fresheye.com saw 24% growth. Yomiuri.co.jp saw 20% growth in January, rounding out the top five.
http://www.bizreport.com/2008/03/japanese_surfers_are_interested_in_education.html
by Kristina Knight
“The New Year marks a time when the people of Japan begin planning and looking ahead, especially to the beginning of the new school and job year in April,” said Maru Sato, Managing Director of comScore Japan. “Real estate sites also saw gains as visitors sought housing information for both buying and selling.”
According to a new report from comScore, training and education websites were the highest traffic gainers in January, growing from 1.7 million users to 2.6 million. This is a 47% increase in traffic year over year.
Real estate websites grew from 3.5 million users to 5.2 million users (45% increase) while Business/Finance and News/Media websites tied for the third top gaining sites moving from 7.8 million users to 10.3 million users. That is a 31% increase for both categories.
Among the Top 10 Gaining properties were J-Cast.com with 82% increased traffic in January. Sponichi.co.jp saw 65% growth for January while Jiji.com saw 28% growth and Fresheye.com saw 24% growth. Yomiuri.co.jp saw 20% growth in January, rounding out the top five.
http://www.bizreport.com/2008/03/japanese_surfers_are_interested_in_education.html
Monday, March 03, 2008
Cover Story: Culture shock
Tokyo's Minato Ward, home to nearly 22,000 foreign residents and the most embassies in Japan, is making a move that seems belated for such a cosmopolitan city: It is setting up its first administrative office to deal with the needs of foreign residents.
It's not that the ward has failed to help foreign residents live comfortably; that work has been outsourced to an auxiliary group.
Instead, Minato Ward and many other municipalities are being forced to review their international affairs offices or auxiliary organizations set up during the economic boom years to help foreign residents.
The governments have come under financial strain and pressure to streamline operations. In addition, some governments say the idea of creating specialized departments for foreign residents and treating them differently from Japanese is outdated.
Minato Ward has the highest percentage--11.8 percent--of non-Japanese residents among Tokyo's 23 administrative wards.
As of Feb. 1, 21,915 foreign residents and 75 foreign embassies were based in Minato Ward. They are also a major source of tax revenue for the ward.
The Minato International Association has been handling most of the ward's international-related work, from providing translations of official city bulletins, to organizing Japanese language classes and enhancing international awareness among Japanese residents.
The association operates on subsidies from the ward as well as private and corporate donations.
But last year, the ward said it would stop providing subsidies to the association after fiscal 2008 as a cost-cutting measure.
The ward said membership at the association, one of eight external groups proposed for consolidation, had declined, making it more dependent on subsidies.
The association's budget was 42 million yen in fiscal 2007.
The ward initially considered divvying up the association's work among existing sections. However, staff and some assembly members warned that work sharing would be impossible.
Yoko Watanabe, an official with Minato Ward's industry and regional promotion department, expressed concerns that the absence of a specialized entity could "send the wrong message that this ward is not committed to international affairs."
Her department will have jurisdiction over the new office.
Watanabe noted that foreign residents "contribute roughly 20 percent of (the ward's) tax income," another reason to make the ward more accommodating to the international community.
The ward says it hopes the new office will "enhance the ward's cosmopolitan image and better serve the needs of non-Japanese residents." The new office will comprise four staff, including counselors, and be headed by a section chief-level official appointed from the public to serve a three- to five-year term.
One of the first measures of the office will be a survey to determine the needs of non-Japanese residents, Watanabe said.
Currently, 15 of the 23 administrative wards in Tokyo have posts or offices that specialize in international or multicultural affairs.
Other wards have incorporated international-related tasks, such as coordinating international exchanges and administrative services for foreign residents, into existing departments.
Toshima Ward, whose 15,935 foreign residents account for about 6 percent of the population, eliminated its culture and international affairs section about eight years ago. Toshima ranks fifth among the 23 wards in terms of the ratio of foreign residents.
The ward now relegates tasks, from informing residents about garbage collection to cultural exchanges with foreign cities, to relevant departments.
To assist the work, the ward has designated 10 ward officials with a command of English, Chinese and other languages to serve as "supporters," along with 29 volunteers.
Masato Nogami, an official at the ward's culture and tourism office, which is in charge of sister-city exchanges, acknowledged that the move was part of a larger drive to streamline the bureaucracy.
But "we would also like to consider non-Japanese not as a particular group requiring special treatment but rather as ordinary citizens," he said.
Many groups commissioned by municipalities to handle such affairs are also biting the bullet.
"We are faced with a strong head wind with cutbacks in financial and human resources," said Mariko Oku, of the Association for Nakano International Communications in Nakano Ward, during a recent panel discussion in Tokyo on the future of international organizations.
The association currently operates on subsidies of about 30 million yen a year, less than half the 70 million yen when it started operations in 1989, Oku said.
Chieko Aogaki, a senior official at the metropolitan government's Tokyo International Communication Committee, said many municipalities "were working hard to provide services to foreign residents, while facing mounting challenges to curb costs and streamline."
"How each municipality engages in international affairs naturally differs with the circumstance facing that municipality," Aogaki said. "What really matters is what the municipality is capable of doing, rather than what kind of arrangement it sets up."(IHT/Asahi: February 29,2008)
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200802290074.html
It's not that the ward has failed to help foreign residents live comfortably; that work has been outsourced to an auxiliary group.
Instead, Minato Ward and many other municipalities are being forced to review their international affairs offices or auxiliary organizations set up during the economic boom years to help foreign residents.
The governments have come under financial strain and pressure to streamline operations. In addition, some governments say the idea of creating specialized departments for foreign residents and treating them differently from Japanese is outdated.
Minato Ward has the highest percentage--11.8 percent--of non-Japanese residents among Tokyo's 23 administrative wards.
As of Feb. 1, 21,915 foreign residents and 75 foreign embassies were based in Minato Ward. They are also a major source of tax revenue for the ward.
The Minato International Association has been handling most of the ward's international-related work, from providing translations of official city bulletins, to organizing Japanese language classes and enhancing international awareness among Japanese residents.
The association operates on subsidies from the ward as well as private and corporate donations.
But last year, the ward said it would stop providing subsidies to the association after fiscal 2008 as a cost-cutting measure.
The ward said membership at the association, one of eight external groups proposed for consolidation, had declined, making it more dependent on subsidies.
The association's budget was 42 million yen in fiscal 2007.
The ward initially considered divvying up the association's work among existing sections. However, staff and some assembly members warned that work sharing would be impossible.
Yoko Watanabe, an official with Minato Ward's industry and regional promotion department, expressed concerns that the absence of a specialized entity could "send the wrong message that this ward is not committed to international affairs."
Her department will have jurisdiction over the new office.
Watanabe noted that foreign residents "contribute roughly 20 percent of (the ward's) tax income," another reason to make the ward more accommodating to the international community.
The ward says it hopes the new office will "enhance the ward's cosmopolitan image and better serve the needs of non-Japanese residents." The new office will comprise four staff, including counselors, and be headed by a section chief-level official appointed from the public to serve a three- to five-year term.
One of the first measures of the office will be a survey to determine the needs of non-Japanese residents, Watanabe said.
Currently, 15 of the 23 administrative wards in Tokyo have posts or offices that specialize in international or multicultural affairs.
Other wards have incorporated international-related tasks, such as coordinating international exchanges and administrative services for foreign residents, into existing departments.
Toshima Ward, whose 15,935 foreign residents account for about 6 percent of the population, eliminated its culture and international affairs section about eight years ago. Toshima ranks fifth among the 23 wards in terms of the ratio of foreign residents.
The ward now relegates tasks, from informing residents about garbage collection to cultural exchanges with foreign cities, to relevant departments.
To assist the work, the ward has designated 10 ward officials with a command of English, Chinese and other languages to serve as "supporters," along with 29 volunteers.
Masato Nogami, an official at the ward's culture and tourism office, which is in charge of sister-city exchanges, acknowledged that the move was part of a larger drive to streamline the bureaucracy.
But "we would also like to consider non-Japanese not as a particular group requiring special treatment but rather as ordinary citizens," he said.
Many groups commissioned by municipalities to handle such affairs are also biting the bullet.
"We are faced with a strong head wind with cutbacks in financial and human resources," said Mariko Oku, of the Association for Nakano International Communications in Nakano Ward, during a recent panel discussion in Tokyo on the future of international organizations.
The association currently operates on subsidies of about 30 million yen a year, less than half the 70 million yen when it started operations in 1989, Oku said.
Chieko Aogaki, a senior official at the metropolitan government's Tokyo International Communication Committee, said many municipalities "were working hard to provide services to foreign residents, while facing mounting challenges to curb costs and streamline."
"How each municipality engages in international affairs naturally differs with the circumstance facing that municipality," Aogaki said. "What really matters is what the municipality is capable of doing, rather than what kind of arrangement it sets up."(IHT/Asahi: February 29,2008)
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200802290074.html
Thursday, February 28, 2008
No. of patent applications by universities up 3.7 times+
The number of patent applications filed during fiscal 2006 by higher education facilities, such as public and private universities, stood at 9,090, 3.7 times higher than fiscal 2003, according to comparable data, the education ministry said Wednesday.
In the reporting year, 2,872 applications were licensed, showing a 15.5-fold increase from three years earlier, according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
Each university "has apparently tried to put the fruits of its research into practical use for survival," a ministry official said.
Among the 9,090, 7,003, or 77 percent, were filed by national institutions, with Kyoto University top of the list having applied for 552 patents.
Private institutions filed 1,718 whereas 369 were filed by public institutions, according to the ministry.
Meanwhile, the University of Tokyo obtained 890 licenses, the highest among the institutions.
Ninety-eight institutions received royalties of about 801 million yen in total, with Nagoya University, known for establishing a base of manufacturing technology for blue light emitting diode, receiving the highest amount of 164 million yen.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8V2D2HG1&show_article=1
In the reporting year, 2,872 applications were licensed, showing a 15.5-fold increase from three years earlier, according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
Each university "has apparently tried to put the fruits of its research into practical use for survival," a ministry official said.
Among the 9,090, 7,003, or 77 percent, were filed by national institutions, with Kyoto University top of the list having applied for 552 patents.
Private institutions filed 1,718 whereas 369 were filed by public institutions, according to the ministry.
Meanwhile, the University of Tokyo obtained 890 licenses, the highest among the institutions.
Ninety-eight institutions received royalties of about 801 million yen in total, with Nagoya University, known for establishing a base of manufacturing technology for blue light emitting diode, receiving the highest amount of 164 million yen.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8V2D2HG1&show_article=1
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
No. of Japanese universities to decline: British academic
LONDON — Japan's higher education system faces "an implosion" due to oversupply and a falling birthrate, according to research from a British academic. Roger Goodman, a Japan expert from Oxford University, says the situation will make it increasingly difficult for the less prestigious and smaller establishments to remain operating as they currently are.
Many institutions — high estimates suggest 40%, low around 15% — will go bankrupt, merge or be taken over within the decade, according to Goodman. He writes, "The Japanese higher education system is facing a contraction, possibly better described as an implosion, of a type not previously ever seen before." Goodman believes that the crisis will lead to a growing "polarization" in higher education, with demand for places at Japan's lower-level universities declining dramatically.
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/429202
Many institutions — high estimates suggest 40%, low around 15% — will go bankrupt, merge or be taken over within the decade, according to Goodman. He writes, "The Japanese higher education system is facing a contraction, possibly better described as an implosion, of a type not previously ever seen before." Goodman believes that the crisis will lead to a growing "polarization" in higher education, with demand for places at Japan's lower-level universities declining dramatically.
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/429202
Monday, February 25, 2008
Japan open for India's lessons
JAPAN is suffering a crisis of confidence these days about its ability to compete with its emerging Asian rivals, China and India. But even in this fad-obsessed nation, one result was never expected: a growing craze for Indian education.
Despite an improved economy, many Japanese are feeling insecure about the nation's schools, which once turned out students who consistently ranked at the top of international tests. That is no longer true, which is why many Japanese are looking for lessons from India, the country they see as the world's ascendant education superpower.
Bookstores are filled with titles such as Extreme Indian Arithmetic Drills and The Unknown Secrets of the Indians. Newspapers carry reports of Indian children memorising multiplication tables far beyond nine times nine, the standard for young elementary students in Japan.
Japan's few Indian international schools are reporting a surge in applications from Japanese families.
At the Little Angels English Academy & International Kindergarten, the textbooks are from India, most of the teachers are South Asian, and classroom posters depict animals out of Indian tales. The pupils even colour maps of India in the green and saffron of its flag. Little Angels is in the Tokyo suburb of Mitaka, where only one of its 45 students is Indian. Most are Japanese.
Viewing another Asian country as a model in education, or almost anything else, would have been unheard-of just a few years ago, say education experts and historians. Much of Japan has long looked down on the rest of Asia, priding itself on being the region's most advanced nation.
Indeed, Japan has dominated the continent for more than a century, first as an imperial power and more recently as the first Asian economy to achieve Western levels of economic development.
But in the past few years Japan has grown increasingly insecure, gripped by fear that it is being overshadowed by India and China, which are rapidly gaining in economic weight and sophistication. The government has tried to preserve Japan's technological lead and strengthen its military. But the Japanese have been forced to shed their traditional indifference to the region.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/education-news/japan-open-for-indias-lessons/2008/02/22/1203467395767.html
Grudgingly, Japan is starting to respect its neighbours. "Until now, Japanese saw China and India as backwards and poor," says Yoshinori Murai, a professor of Asian cultures at Sophia University in Tokyo. "As Japan loses confidence in itself, its attitudes towards Asia are changing. It has started seeing India and China as nations with something to offer."
Last month a national cry of alarm greeted the announcement by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development that in a survey of maths skills, Japan had fallen from first place in 2000 to 10th place, behind Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. From second in science in 2000, Japan dropped to sixth place.
China has stirred more concern in Japan as a political and economic challenger but India has emerged as the country to beat in a more benign rivalry over education. In part, this reflects China's image in Japan as a cheap manufacturer and technological imitator. But India's success in software development, internet businesses and knowledge-intensive industries in which Japan has failed to make inroads has set off more than a tinge of envy.
Most annoying for many Japanese is that the aspects of Indian education they now praise are similar to those that once made Japan famous for its work ethic and discipline: learning more at an earlier age, an emphasis on memorisation and cramming, and a focus on the basics, particularly in maths and science.
India's more demanding education standards are apparent at the Little Angels Kindergarten and are its main selling point. Its two-year-old pupils are taught to count to 20, three-year-olds are introduced to computers, and five-year-olds learn to multiply, solve maths word problems and write one-page essays in English, tasks most Japanese schools do not teach until at least year 2.
Japan's anxieties about its declining competitiveness echo the the angst of the US decades ago, when Japan was the economic upstart.
As with many new things in Japan, the interest in Indian-style education quickly became a fad. Indian education is a frequent topic in forums such as talk shows. Popular books claim to reveal the Indian secrets for multiplying and dividing multiple-digit numbers. Even Japan's conservative education ministry has begun discussing Indian methods, says Jun Takai of the ministry's international affairs division.
Eager parents try to send their children to Japan's roughly half-dozen Indian schools, hoping for an edge on the competitive college entrance exams. In Tokyo, the two largest Indian schools, which teach kindergarten through to year 8, mainly to Indian expatriates, received a sudden increase in inquiries from Japanese parents starting last year.
The Global Indian International School says 20 of its about 200 students are now Japanese, with demand so high from Indian and Japanese parents that it is building a second campus in the neighbouring city of Yokohama.
The other, the India International School in Japan, just expanded to 170 students last year, including 10 Japanese. It already has plans to expand again.
Japanese parents have expressed very high interest in Indian schools, says Nirmal Jain, principal of the India International School.
The boom has had the side effect of making many Japanese a little more tolerant towards other Asians. The founder of the Little Angels school, Jeevarani Angelina says she initially had difficulty persuading landlords to rent space to an Indian woman to start a school. But now, it's a selling point that she and three of her four full-time teachers are non-Japanese Asians.
"When I started, it was a first to have an English-language school taught by Asians, not Caucasians," she says, referring to the long presence here of American and European international schools.
Unlike other Indian schools, Ms Angelina says, Little Angels was intended primarily for Japanese children, to meet the need she had found when she sent her sons to Japanese kindergarten.
"I was lucky because I started when the Indian-education boom started," Ms Angelina says.
She has adapted the curriculum to Japan with more group activities, less memorisation and no Indian history. She plans to open an Indian-style primary school this year. Parents are enthusiastic about the school's rigorous standards.
"My son's level is higher than those of other Japanese children the same age," says Eiko Kikutake, whose son Hayato, 5, attends Little Angels. "Indian education is really amazing! This wouldn't have been possible at a Japanese kindergarten."
-- NEW YORK TIMES
Few Takers for Japanese at HSC level (Pune)
PUNE: The Maharashtra state board for secondary and higher secondary education's move to introduce Japanese language at the higher secondary certificate (HSC, Class XII) level, has met with a rather lukewarm response. Barely 14 students from a solitary institution in Mumbai will appear for the first Japanese paper as part of the HSC exam which begins from February 28.
The paper is scheduled for 11 am to 2 pm on March 14. Board chairperson Vijaysheela Sardesai confirmed the figure while speaking to TOI on Friday evening. "This is the first year when the test for Japanese will be part of the overall exam schedule. We hope more students will add to Japanese studies at the junior college level (Class XI and XII) in the years to follow," she said.
What comes as a surprise is the fact that no academic institution in Pune — which accounts for India's largest pool of Japanese learners at the higher education level — opted for the subject despite the immense career potential offered by Japanese language in the emerging global economy.
On an annual basis, 2,600 people from Pune take Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) for different levels of proficiency. The city has 22 amateur as well as professional bodies and individual tutors for Japanese.
The Japanese Students' Services Organisation (Jasso), a body under Japan's ministry of education, looks at Pune as a crucial base for promoting Japanese language. All this, considering that the demand for Japanese language interpreters and teachers, especially at the Nikkyu level of conversation skill, is high in the infotech and management sectors. The response from junior colleges to the board's initiative is surprising in this context.
The state education board introduced Japanese subject at the junior college level in 2006-07 with a specific objective of presenting the students an opportunity to catch up with the language at an early age. Former board chairman Vasant Kalpande, under whose tenure the initiative was taken, explained, "Japanese companies are fast emerging at the global stage.
Japanese investment in India has been on the rise. Keeping this in view, we worked on introducing the language at junior college level". Prior to Japanese, the board had introduced French, German, Persian, Russian and Arabic. "The Japanese consulate in Mumbai offered help in enabling the state board prepare the syllabus, reference material and text books," said Kalpande.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Pune/Few_takers_for_Japanese_at_HSC_level/articleshow/2808896.cms
The paper is scheduled for 11 am to 2 pm on March 14. Board chairperson Vijaysheela Sardesai confirmed the figure while speaking to TOI on Friday evening. "This is the first year when the test for Japanese will be part of the overall exam schedule. We hope more students will add to Japanese studies at the junior college level (Class XI and XII) in the years to follow," she said.
What comes as a surprise is the fact that no academic institution in Pune — which accounts for India's largest pool of Japanese learners at the higher education level — opted for the subject despite the immense career potential offered by Japanese language in the emerging global economy.
On an annual basis, 2,600 people from Pune take Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) for different levels of proficiency. The city has 22 amateur as well as professional bodies and individual tutors for Japanese.
The Japanese Students' Services Organisation (Jasso), a body under Japan's ministry of education, looks at Pune as a crucial base for promoting Japanese language. All this, considering that the demand for Japanese language interpreters and teachers, especially at the Nikkyu level of conversation skill, is high in the infotech and management sectors. The response from junior colleges to the board's initiative is surprising in this context.
The state education board introduced Japanese subject at the junior college level in 2006-07 with a specific objective of presenting the students an opportunity to catch up with the language at an early age. Former board chairman Vasant Kalpande, under whose tenure the initiative was taken, explained, "Japanese companies are fast emerging at the global stage.
Japanese investment in India has been on the rise. Keeping this in view, we worked on introducing the language at junior college level". Prior to Japanese, the board had introduced French, German, Persian, Russian and Arabic. "The Japanese consulate in Mumbai offered help in enabling the state board prepare the syllabus, reference material and text books," said Kalpande.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Pune/Few_takers_for_Japanese_at_HSC_level/articleshow/2808896.cms
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Over 9,400 foreign students earn degrees in Japan
The number of foreign students who earned academic degrees in Japan came to 9,446 in fiscal 2006, up 86 percent from fiscal 2001, the Japan Student Services Organization said Saturday.
Of them, 6,900 earned master's degrees, with 2,637 majoring in social sciences such as political studies, economics or sociology, said the organization affiliated with the education ministry.
It said 84 percent of the master's candidates were able to obtain the degree in two years.
The remaining 2,546 students obtained Ph.Ds, half of whom were able to earn theirs in three to four years, it said. Of them, 658 students majored in engineering, it added.
Of the degree earners in fiscal 2006 through March last year, 62 percent with master's remained in Japan for jobs or further research, and 27 percent returned to their homelands, according to the organization.
Of the doctorate degree holders, 36 percent remained in Japan and 47 percent returned to their homelands to take jobs or continue research, it said.
The number of foreign students at graduate schools in Japan came to a record 31,592 in fiscal 2007.
"Graduate schools in Japan have gradually expanded their programs for foreign students since the Central Education Council proposed accepting more of them in 2003," an organization official said.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8UHQGPG1&show_article=1
Of them, 6,900 earned master's degrees, with 2,637 majoring in social sciences such as political studies, economics or sociology, said the organization affiliated with the education ministry.
It said 84 percent of the master's candidates were able to obtain the degree in two years.
The remaining 2,546 students obtained Ph.Ds, half of whom were able to earn theirs in three to four years, it said. Of them, 658 students majored in engineering, it added.
Of the degree earners in fiscal 2006 through March last year, 62 percent with master's remained in Japan for jobs or further research, and 27 percent returned to their homelands, according to the organization.
Of the doctorate degree holders, 36 percent remained in Japan and 47 percent returned to their homelands to take jobs or continue research, it said.
The number of foreign students at graduate schools in Japan came to a record 31,592 in fiscal 2007.
"Graduate schools in Japan have gradually expanded their programs for foreign students since the Central Education Council proposed accepting more of them in 2003," an organization official said.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8UHQGPG1&show_article=1
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Education ministry to create university guidelines
The education ministry has decided to craft curriculum guidelines for undergraduate programs setting minimum knowledge and techniques required for graduation, with the aim of maintaining the quality of education at universities, ministry sources said Tuesday.
The move comes amid increasing concerns over the possible deterioration in the quality of college education as the number of applicants has been dropping amid a declining fertility rate.
However, some university officials are expected to express reluctance to any interference by the government when it comes to deciding the educational curriculum at universities, pointing to the university education's principle of independence and autonomy.
At present, university curricula are left to the discretion of each university, while those at elementary, junior high and high schools are created based on the guidelines compiled by the ministry.
In order to respect academic independence, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology plans to call on the Science Council of Japan, an organization comprising scientists from a variety of fields, for deliberations on the matter.
By introducing curriculum guidelines, which will be on a department basis, the ministry aims to tighten graduation criteria and facilitate the assessment of curricula introduced by each university and its educational outcomes.
The move also reflects Japan's apparent bid to streamline university education evaluation standards since the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is considering launching a study to assess university educational outcomes using the world's standardized criteria and Japan is set to take part in the study.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8UFLPR82&show_article=1
The move comes amid increasing concerns over the possible deterioration in the quality of college education as the number of applicants has been dropping amid a declining fertility rate.
However, some university officials are expected to express reluctance to any interference by the government when it comes to deciding the educational curriculum at universities, pointing to the university education's principle of independence and autonomy.
At present, university curricula are left to the discretion of each university, while those at elementary, junior high and high schools are created based on the guidelines compiled by the ministry.
In order to respect academic independence, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology plans to call on the Science Council of Japan, an organization comprising scientists from a variety of fields, for deliberations on the matter.
By introducing curriculum guidelines, which will be on a department basis, the ministry aims to tighten graduation criteria and facilitate the assessment of curricula introduced by each university and its educational outcomes.
The move also reflects Japan's apparent bid to streamline university education evaluation standards since the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is considering launching a study to assess university educational outcomes using the world's standardized criteria and Japan is set to take part in the study.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8UFLPR82&show_article=1
Panel to propose setting up new body for education reform
The Education Rebuilding Council has decided to urge the government to set up a new body to carry out its proposals, including reinforcement of moral education, informed sources said Tuesday.
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will form the new body as requested after he receives the final report of the panel, headed by Nobel chemistry laureate Ryoji Noyori, on Thursday, the sources said.
The new organization to be established in February will be comprised of five experts from business circles and local authorities as well as several Cabinet members, including Fukuda, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura and education minister Kisaburo Tokai, they said.
The new body will supervise if the government will steadily implement the proposals of the council.
In addition to paying attention to moral education, the introduction of small, proficiency-dependent classes and assignment of special instructors in science, math, sports and art fields at the elementary school level will also be prioritized, they said.
Promotion of reforms at the undergraduate and graduate levels at university through the September enrollment system and expansion of English classes will also be encouraged by the new body.
The 16-member panel was set up in October 2006 under the initiative of then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8UFLPT00&show_article=1
Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will form the new body as requested after he receives the final report of the panel, headed by Nobel chemistry laureate Ryoji Noyori, on Thursday, the sources said.
The new organization to be established in February will be comprised of five experts from business circles and local authorities as well as several Cabinet members, including Fukuda, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura and education minister Kisaburo Tokai, they said.
The new body will supervise if the government will steadily implement the proposals of the council.
In addition to paying attention to moral education, the introduction of small, proficiency-dependent classes and assignment of special instructors in science, math, sports and art fields at the elementary school level will also be prioritized, they said.
Promotion of reforms at the undergraduate and graduate levels at university through the September enrollment system and expansion of English classes will also be encouraged by the new body.
The 16-member panel was set up in October 2006 under the initiative of then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8UFLPT00&show_article=1
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Cyber University to tackle possible cheats
The education ministry will issue a warning to Japan's first all-Internet university to more diligently confirm the identities of students to prevent the use of ringers.
Cyber University chief Sakuji Yoshimura, a visiting professor of Waseda University specializing in Egyptology, told reporters Monday that efforts would be made to identify all students by the end of January.
Cyber University was established in April 2007 and is operated by Japan Cyber Educational Institute Ltd., a subsidiary of leading Japanese Internet company Softbank Corp.
Students of the university can listen to lectures and take tests over the Internet without actually going to campus. But that means ringers could do all the work for students to gain the credits needed for a degree.
When the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology approved the establishment of Cyber University in November 2006, it asked the school to confirm the identities of students through an orientation process that involved direct interviews.
However, Yoshimura admitted Monday that 180 of the 620 students currently registered have not had their identities confirmed through some form of visual contact.
That deficiency led to the education ministry's decision to issue a rare warning because the university had left open the possibility of ringers posing as students.
A ministry warning is stronger than the usual guidance issued to improve operations. If the university fails to heed the warning, the ministry can issue an even stronger recommendation to change operations.
Cyber University had been asking students to attend explanatory meetings held in various locations of Japan and has also used Internet cameras to confirm the identities of students.
The university plans to complete the confirmation process by the end of January, but those who are not identified by then will be visited individually.
Yoshimura explained in Monday's news conference that the university would not certify course credits for students whose identities are not confirmed. Such students would eventually be advised to leave the university.
He said the university would make stronger efforts to confirm the identities of students before they enter the university as well as use mobile phones to confirm that the student is actually attending a "lecture."
As part of deregulation measures, the education ministry eased inspection procedures before a new university is established. In exchange, the ministry has intensified oversight of the actual educational process for a few years after opening to ensure the institution is offering what it promised to do in its application.
If problems are found, the university is advised to improve the situation. If that fails, a warning is issued.
Cyber University's headquarters is in Fukuoka. It has two faculties: the Faculty of Information Technology and Business; and the Faculty of World Heritage.
The university has 1,900 students, including those who only take certain courses rather than work for a degree. About 70 percent of the students are in their 20s and 30s, and about 60 percent are working.
Many of the students in the Faculty of World Heritage are homemakers and retired men.(IHT/Asahi: January 23,2008)
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200801230056.html
Cyber University chief Sakuji Yoshimura, a visiting professor of Waseda University specializing in Egyptology, told reporters Monday that efforts would be made to identify all students by the end of January.
Cyber University was established in April 2007 and is operated by Japan Cyber Educational Institute Ltd., a subsidiary of leading Japanese Internet company Softbank Corp.
Students of the university can listen to lectures and take tests over the Internet without actually going to campus. But that means ringers could do all the work for students to gain the credits needed for a degree.
When the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology approved the establishment of Cyber University in November 2006, it asked the school to confirm the identities of students through an orientation process that involved direct interviews.
However, Yoshimura admitted Monday that 180 of the 620 students currently registered have not had their identities confirmed through some form of visual contact.
That deficiency led to the education ministry's decision to issue a rare warning because the university had left open the possibility of ringers posing as students.
A ministry warning is stronger than the usual guidance issued to improve operations. If the university fails to heed the warning, the ministry can issue an even stronger recommendation to change operations.
Cyber University had been asking students to attend explanatory meetings held in various locations of Japan and has also used Internet cameras to confirm the identities of students.
The university plans to complete the confirmation process by the end of January, but those who are not identified by then will be visited individually.
Yoshimura explained in Monday's news conference that the university would not certify course credits for students whose identities are not confirmed. Such students would eventually be advised to leave the university.
He said the university would make stronger efforts to confirm the identities of students before they enter the university as well as use mobile phones to confirm that the student is actually attending a "lecture."
As part of deregulation measures, the education ministry eased inspection procedures before a new university is established. In exchange, the ministry has intensified oversight of the actual educational process for a few years after opening to ensure the institution is offering what it promised to do in its application.
If problems are found, the university is advised to improve the situation. If that fails, a warning is issued.
Cyber University's headquarters is in Fukuoka. It has two faculties: the Faculty of Information Technology and Business; and the Faculty of World Heritage.
The university has 1,900 students, including those who only take certain courses rather than work for a degree. About 70 percent of the students are in their 20s and 30s, and about 60 percent are working.
Many of the students in the Faculty of World Heritage are homemakers and retired men.(IHT/Asahi: January 23,2008)
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200801230056.html
Campus unknown named next dean of Japan campus
Bruce Stronach was named the next dean of Temple University-Japan on Jan. 10, to replace the retiring dean, Kirk R. Patterson. Stronach will officially join TUJ on Feb. 1 but will not assume the role of dean until April 1.
An interim dean has not been named.
Currently, Stronach, a campus outsider with an academic career that spans three decades and two continents, is transitioning from his term as president of Yokohama City University, where he has been since 2004.
"I am very happy to have been selected as dean," wrote Stronach in an email from Japan. "I am very much looking forward to working with everyone on the Temple team in Philadelphia, Tokyo, and elsewhere around the world."
Stronach is accomplished, having been the first foreign president of a Japanese public university when he was first hired as president of YCU, a mid-sized school of 4,500 in a city of 3.5 million some 20 miles south of Tokyo.
Prior to that appointment, Stronach had been acting president at Becker College in Worcester, M.A. since 2003 and its chief operating officer before then since 1998. From 1990 to 1997, he held faculty and administrative positions at the Graduate School of International Relations at the International University of Japan in Niigata, eventually serving as the school's dean beginning in 1994. Stronach also has held faculty appointments at Merrimack College in North Andover, M.A, and at Keio University in Tokyo.
Indeed, Stronach, 57, is the accomplished academic to his former competition, 37-year-old attorney Matthew J. Wilson, TUJ's current chief legal counsel and the only other candidate to be named a finalist by the university's search advisory committee.
Wilson had been a frequent de facto acting dean when Patterson was away on leave, most recently in the interim between Patterson's TUJ departure Dec. 17 and Stronach's appointment, according to some at the campus. However, some university sources said Wilson's exact role was unclear.
No official announcement regarding an interim dean was named between Patterson's official exit Dec. 31 and Stronach's official entrance Feb. 1. TUJ's semester began on Jan. 14, according to Stephanie Gillin, chief of staff to University Provost Lisa Staiano-Coico, who, with President Ann Weaver Hart, made the final decision on Patterson's successor.
There had been some question to the delay in the decision to nominate Stronach, a longtime friend of Patterson's. Official comment on the timing of the announcement has not been made.
"I am just beginning to absorb all the pressures of the transition and to bring myself up to speed on matters pertaining to both the home campus and the Tokyo campus," wrote Stronach in the same email from Saturday.
He has not spoken to what, if anything, his friendship with Patterson, who was not active in the selection of his replacement, might mean for his plans and goals.
Patterson, who served from 2002 to 2007 and announced his retirement on Aug. 27, will likely be remembered for a tenure highlighted by unprecedented growth, though marred with late coming criticism of his leadership style, which some suggested was too controlling.
Sources, including TUJ administrators and faculty, who afforded this characterization would not speak on the record but additionally praised the fiscal successes Patterson led.
"My successor will inherit an institution that is very optimistic," wrote Patterson in an email from early December. "TUJ is becoming a first in the world model for international education."
The man Stronach beat out, Wilson, had a leading role in the Patterson administration. He noted during interviews on Main Campus in November that his direct experience with TUJ was a prize advantage in his quest to become dean.
"I won't have an on-the-job learning period," he said while on Main Campus in November.
Despite watching an outside leapfrog him for the chief spot he coveted, Wilson intoned his intentions to stay on with his role at the branch campus.
"I am excited that Dr. Bruce Stronach has agreed to join the Temple family," he wrote in an email to The Temple News from Tokyo on the day of the announcement. "[I] look forward to working with him in my capacities as Associate Dean and General Counsel."
Wilson, who is narrow, blonde and noted for his boyish features, rapidly ascended through administrative ranks during a four and a half year TUJ career.
Wilson was taken on as a professor of law at TUJ in April 2003 and began what has been a startling ascension. Just two months later he was named the law program's director. Then, a little over a year later, he was installed both as TUJ's chief legal counsel and associate dean.
Those positions, which he still holds, were coupled with a semester as director of TUJ's undergraduate program last spring. If he had been appointed, he would have been the youngest dean in that campus's history.
But he wasn't and, where Wilson's rise through Temple administrative ranks has been heralded, Stronach's youth was less direct. His first attempt at college failed.
"You should be committed to your education because I wasn't," he told The Temple News in a November interview on Main Campus.
Young Stronach grew up on a small farm in Massachusetts and first left home for Boston College in the late 1960s. The football player who got caught up in the anti-war movement struggled to find a desire for academics, so he left in 1970. The next three years of his life were spent working as a truck driver and in various manufacturing capacities.
"The first half of my life was spent in factories, on trucks," he said in the same interview. "So, I think I have a pretty good idea what the real world is like."
Stronach has two daughters, one of whom currently attends Wake Forest University, another is a student at a high school outside of Boston.
In speaking with The Temple News, Stronach expressed an interest in further developing TUJ's image as a permanent fixture of higher education in Japan and working on partnerships with other Japanese universities.
"I want TUJ to become more of a Japanese institution," he said in November, while still just a candidate for the position. "Not just the extension campus of Temple University."
Still, he admitted not knowing much about the daily operations of TUJ.
"I don't know all that much about TUJ," he said. "But I think that is more of an asset than a deficit."
Christopher Wink can be reached at cwink@temple.edu.
The Temple News originally misreported when Stronach will officially become dean. He will join TUJ on Feb. 1, but won't become dean until April 1 as changed on Jan. 23 at 6:21 p.m.
http://media.www.temple-news.com/media/storage/paper143/news/2008/01/22/News/Campus.Unknown.Named.Next.Dean.Of.Japan.Campus-3161958.shtml
An interim dean has not been named.
Currently, Stronach, a campus outsider with an academic career that spans three decades and two continents, is transitioning from his term as president of Yokohama City University, where he has been since 2004.
"I am very happy to have been selected as dean," wrote Stronach in an email from Japan. "I am very much looking forward to working with everyone on the Temple team in Philadelphia, Tokyo, and elsewhere around the world."
Stronach is accomplished, having been the first foreign president of a Japanese public university when he was first hired as president of YCU, a mid-sized school of 4,500 in a city of 3.5 million some 20 miles south of Tokyo.
Prior to that appointment, Stronach had been acting president at Becker College in Worcester, M.A. since 2003 and its chief operating officer before then since 1998. From 1990 to 1997, he held faculty and administrative positions at the Graduate School of International Relations at the International University of Japan in Niigata, eventually serving as the school's dean beginning in 1994. Stronach also has held faculty appointments at Merrimack College in North Andover, M.A, and at Keio University in Tokyo.
Indeed, Stronach, 57, is the accomplished academic to his former competition, 37-year-old attorney Matthew J. Wilson, TUJ's current chief legal counsel and the only other candidate to be named a finalist by the university's search advisory committee.
Wilson had been a frequent de facto acting dean when Patterson was away on leave, most recently in the interim between Patterson's TUJ departure Dec. 17 and Stronach's appointment, according to some at the campus. However, some university sources said Wilson's exact role was unclear.
No official announcement regarding an interim dean was named between Patterson's official exit Dec. 31 and Stronach's official entrance Feb. 1. TUJ's semester began on Jan. 14, according to Stephanie Gillin, chief of staff to University Provost Lisa Staiano-Coico, who, with President Ann Weaver Hart, made the final decision on Patterson's successor.
There had been some question to the delay in the decision to nominate Stronach, a longtime friend of Patterson's. Official comment on the timing of the announcement has not been made.
"I am just beginning to absorb all the pressures of the transition and to bring myself up to speed on matters pertaining to both the home campus and the Tokyo campus," wrote Stronach in the same email from Saturday.
He has not spoken to what, if anything, his friendship with Patterson, who was not active in the selection of his replacement, might mean for his plans and goals.
Patterson, who served from 2002 to 2007 and announced his retirement on Aug. 27, will likely be remembered for a tenure highlighted by unprecedented growth, though marred with late coming criticism of his leadership style, which some suggested was too controlling.
Sources, including TUJ administrators and faculty, who afforded this characterization would not speak on the record but additionally praised the fiscal successes Patterson led.
"My successor will inherit an institution that is very optimistic," wrote Patterson in an email from early December. "TUJ is becoming a first in the world model for international education."
The man Stronach beat out, Wilson, had a leading role in the Patterson administration. He noted during interviews on Main Campus in November that his direct experience with TUJ was a prize advantage in his quest to become dean.
"I won't have an on-the-job learning period," he said while on Main Campus in November.
Despite watching an outside leapfrog him for the chief spot he coveted, Wilson intoned his intentions to stay on with his role at the branch campus.
"I am excited that Dr. Bruce Stronach has agreed to join the Temple family," he wrote in an email to The Temple News from Tokyo on the day of the announcement. "[I] look forward to working with him in my capacities as Associate Dean and General Counsel."
Wilson, who is narrow, blonde and noted for his boyish features, rapidly ascended through administrative ranks during a four and a half year TUJ career.
Wilson was taken on as a professor of law at TUJ in April 2003 and began what has been a startling ascension. Just two months later he was named the law program's director. Then, a little over a year later, he was installed both as TUJ's chief legal counsel and associate dean.
Those positions, which he still holds, were coupled with a semester as director of TUJ's undergraduate program last spring. If he had been appointed, he would have been the youngest dean in that campus's history.
But he wasn't and, where Wilson's rise through Temple administrative ranks has been heralded, Stronach's youth was less direct. His first attempt at college failed.
"You should be committed to your education because I wasn't," he told The Temple News in a November interview on Main Campus.
Young Stronach grew up on a small farm in Massachusetts and first left home for Boston College in the late 1960s. The football player who got caught up in the anti-war movement struggled to find a desire for academics, so he left in 1970. The next three years of his life were spent working as a truck driver and in various manufacturing capacities.
"The first half of my life was spent in factories, on trucks," he said in the same interview. "So, I think I have a pretty good idea what the real world is like."
Stronach has two daughters, one of whom currently attends Wake Forest University, another is a student at a high school outside of Boston.
In speaking with The Temple News, Stronach expressed an interest in further developing TUJ's image as a permanent fixture of higher education in Japan and working on partnerships with other Japanese universities.
"I want TUJ to become more of a Japanese institution," he said in November, while still just a candidate for the position. "Not just the extension campus of Temple University."
Still, he admitted not knowing much about the daily operations of TUJ.
"I don't know all that much about TUJ," he said. "But I think that is more of an asset than a deficit."
Christopher Wink can be reached at cwink@temple.edu.
The Temple News originally misreported when Stronach will officially become dean. He will join TUJ on Feb. 1, but won't become dean until April 1 as changed on Jan. 23 at 6:21 p.m.
http://media.www.temple-news.com/media/storage/paper143/news/2008/01/22/News/Campus.Unknown.Named.Next.Dean.Of.Japan.Campus-3161958.shtml
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
