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
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
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
College entrance exams show Japan's economic conditions
Tokyo - The gap between rich and poor families has become apparent among students who took standardized exams as part of the National Center Tests for University Admissions across Japan on Saturday.An 18-year-old female high school student, accompanied by her mother, took the exam at Tokyo University in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo. The student, whose first choice is a course at Tokyo University's literature department, will also take exams for 12 other universities."
Some of these university exams will serve as a warm-up exercise for me. It's costly to take so many tests, but it's not a big deal," she said with an air of embarrassment.
A male high school student, also 18, who took the exam at Chiba University in Chiba, submitted applications to 10 faculties at five universities, at a total cost of 300,000 yen ($2,805.60).
However, many students have to reduce the number of exams they take or the number of applications they submit due to financial constraints."My older sisters go to a junior college and a vocational school. Because my father is a security guard, I can only go to a national or public university, in light of my father's financial position," another student said, whose first choice is studying engineering at Muroran Institute of Technology.
http://media.www.arbiteronline.com/media/storage/paper890/news/2008/01/22/News/The-Headlines-3160214.shtml
Some of these university exams will serve as a warm-up exercise for me. It's costly to take so many tests, but it's not a big deal," she said with an air of embarrassment.
A male high school student, also 18, who took the exam at Chiba University in Chiba, submitted applications to 10 faculties at five universities, at a total cost of 300,000 yen ($2,805.60).
However, many students have to reduce the number of exams they take or the number of applications they submit due to financial constraints."My older sisters go to a junior college and a vocational school. Because my father is a security guard, I can only go to a national or public university, in light of my father's financial position," another student said, whose first choice is studying engineering at Muroran Institute of Technology.
http://media.www.arbiteronline.com/media/storage/paper890/news/2008/01/22/News/The-Headlines-3160214.shtml
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Japan's top school uses English to lure Asians from US
THE University of Tokyo, considered Japan's most prestigious seat of learning, said on Monday it will teach a graduate programme entirely in English in a bid to lure future policymakers away from US schools.
The university will launch classes in October for degrees in 'social information studies', which looks at the role of the Internet, cellphones and other communications in society.
The programme will each year admit 15 students for master's degrees and eight for PhDs, aimed at students from other Asian countries who plan to work in public policy, diplomacy and journalism.
It will be the University of Tokyo's first English-only programme in the humanities, although English has been the medium used to teach various science courses.
Japan last year launched the 'Asian Gateway Initiative' to increase the clout of Asia's largest economy by boosting airline routes and encouraging more foreign students to study here.
But a majority of Asian students learning overseas pick the United States.
The university said it will promote itself as giving a more Asian perspective.
'Students can gain a better understanding of Asia by studying it in Japan rather than in the United States,' said Shunya Yoshimi, director of university's Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, which will administer the degree.
To compete with US universities, the Japanese school said it will screen applicants through the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and Graduate Record Examination (GRE), the standard tests for US graduate schools. -- AFP
http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest+News/Asia/STIStory_198477.html
The university will launch classes in October for degrees in 'social information studies', which looks at the role of the Internet, cellphones and other communications in society.
The programme will each year admit 15 students for master's degrees and eight for PhDs, aimed at students from other Asian countries who plan to work in public policy, diplomacy and journalism.
It will be the University of Tokyo's first English-only programme in the humanities, although English has been the medium used to teach various science courses.
Japan last year launched the 'Asian Gateway Initiative' to increase the clout of Asia's largest economy by boosting airline routes and encouraging more foreign students to study here.
But a majority of Asian students learning overseas pick the United States.
The university said it will promote itself as giving a more Asian perspective.
'Students can gain a better understanding of Asia by studying it in Japan rather than in the United States,' said Shunya Yoshimi, director of university's Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, which will administer the degree.
To compete with US universities, the Japanese school said it will screen applicants through the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and Graduate Record Examination (GRE), the standard tests for US graduate schools. -- AFP
http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest+News/Asia/STIStory_198477.html
Tokyo University Adds All-English Graduate Course, Asahi Says
University of Tokyo will start a graduate program in English in October to attract more students from overseas and compete against U.S. schools, the Asahi newspaper said.
The program will focus on information technology in Asian society and is intended for future policy makers, diplomats, and journalists, the newspaper reported.
The school aims to initially accept 15 students at the master's level and eight doctoral candidates, screened by TOEFL and GRE scores, rather than the university's conventional entrance exam, the newspaper said.
University of Tokyo is ranked 15 among the world's top schools and faces tougher competition as China's universities seek to attract more students from around Asia, the paper said. Japan's so-called Asia Gateway Initiative started last year aims to attract 350,000 overseas students to Japan by 2025, or three times more than current enrollments.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=a8ar8e5QNG54&refer=japan
The program will focus on information technology in Asian society and is intended for future policy makers, diplomats, and journalists, the newspaper reported.
The school aims to initially accept 15 students at the master's level and eight doctoral candidates, screened by TOEFL and GRE scores, rather than the university's conventional entrance exam, the newspaper said.
University of Tokyo is ranked 15 among the world's top schools and faces tougher competition as China's universities seek to attract more students from around Asia, the paper said. Japan's so-called Asia Gateway Initiative started last year aims to attract 350,000 overseas students to Japan by 2025, or three times more than current enrollments.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=a8ar8e5QNG54&refer=japan
Cyber Univ. 'lax on student ID' / Education ministry to instruct online university to tighten controls
The Education, Science and Technology Ministry has decided to instruct Cyber University to improve a system under which the college gave students credits without confirming their identities, it has been learned.
The Fukuoka-based open university provides students with four-year courses with all the lectures online, allowing them to take classes on the Internet from any location.
Unlike an ordinary open university, the university does not provide any lectures in classrooms, promoting itself as a school where a student can be certified as a college graduate without ever having to go to a campus.
However, according to sources, the university was yet to confirm the identity of about 200 of the 620 students currently enrolled. It also is believed to have given most of the 200 students lecture credits, which are required to graduate from the college.
Taking these facts into consideration, the ministry concluded the college is probably violating the university establishment standards, which stipulate that universities give credits only to students who take lectures.
The ministry will consider issuing the university with improvement advice under the School Education Law, if the college does not complete confirming the identity of all students by April, the sources said.
The university, headed by Sakuji Yoshimura, a well-known Egyptologist, was opened in April by Fukuoka-based Japan Cyber Educational Institute, Ltd., in which SoftBank Corp. holds a 71 percent share.
It has two faculties, covering information technology and world heritage studies. Students have to pay at least 2.6 million yen in tuition to graduate from the university.
In autumn 2006, when giving approval for the establishment of the university, the University Chartering and School Juridical Person Council, an advisory panel to the education, science and technology minister, pointed out several problems, including the university's likely difficulty in checking whether students had really listened to online lectures.
The council then suggested 11 aspects in which the university needed to improve, including:
-- The need to confirm students' identity when they are admitted to the college and take classes online, as well as when the university gives them credits and reviews their graduation qualification.
-- The need to conduct a face-to-face orientation when students are admitted to the college.
In response to the council's suggestions, the university said it would set up a system in which students are unable to take online classes without an IC card.
However, the university has yet to start the IC card system. In addition, under the current system, anyone can listen to online classes by logging in using IDs and passwords given to students.
Under this system, the university has certified students' credits for the first semester of the 2007 academic year, using information based on the history of those who took classes and results of examinations held online.
The ministry had earlier approved a system in which the college confirms students' identities through a camera installed on a PC. But the university has never confirmed the identity of the 200 students in question using the camera system, or in person.
In such circumstances, students could have someone else take classes and examinations online to obtain credits to graduate from the university.
The ministry therefore decided to instruct the university to improve its system, citing the possibility that the school might not meet the university establishment standards.
"If we receive an instruction from the ministry, we'll accept it in good faith. We'd like to complete the identity confirmation of all the students by April," Kaiya Watanabe, the university's secretary general, said.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080121TDY02310.htm
The Fukuoka-based open university provides students with four-year courses with all the lectures online, allowing them to take classes on the Internet from any location.
Unlike an ordinary open university, the university does not provide any lectures in classrooms, promoting itself as a school where a student can be certified as a college graduate without ever having to go to a campus.
However, according to sources, the university was yet to confirm the identity of about 200 of the 620 students currently enrolled. It also is believed to have given most of the 200 students lecture credits, which are required to graduate from the college.
Taking these facts into consideration, the ministry concluded the college is probably violating the university establishment standards, which stipulate that universities give credits only to students who take lectures.
The ministry will consider issuing the university with improvement advice under the School Education Law, if the college does not complete confirming the identity of all students by April, the sources said.
The university, headed by Sakuji Yoshimura, a well-known Egyptologist, was opened in April by Fukuoka-based Japan Cyber Educational Institute, Ltd., in which SoftBank Corp. holds a 71 percent share.
It has two faculties, covering information technology and world heritage studies. Students have to pay at least 2.6 million yen in tuition to graduate from the university.
In autumn 2006, when giving approval for the establishment of the university, the University Chartering and School Juridical Person Council, an advisory panel to the education, science and technology minister, pointed out several problems, including the university's likely difficulty in checking whether students had really listened to online lectures.
The council then suggested 11 aspects in which the university needed to improve, including:
-- The need to confirm students' identity when they are admitted to the college and take classes online, as well as when the university gives them credits and reviews their graduation qualification.
-- The need to conduct a face-to-face orientation when students are admitted to the college.
In response to the council's suggestions, the university said it would set up a system in which students are unable to take online classes without an IC card.
However, the university has yet to start the IC card system. In addition, under the current system, anyone can listen to online classes by logging in using IDs and passwords given to students.
Under this system, the university has certified students' credits for the first semester of the 2007 academic year, using information based on the history of those who took classes and results of examinations held online.
The ministry had earlier approved a system in which the college confirms students' identities through a camera installed on a PC. But the university has never confirmed the identity of the 200 students in question using the camera system, or in person.
In such circumstances, students could have someone else take classes and examinations online to obtain credits to graduate from the university.
The ministry therefore decided to instruct the university to improve its system, citing the possibility that the school might not meet the university establishment standards.
"If we receive an instruction from the ministry, we'll accept it in good faith. We'd like to complete the identity confirmation of all the students by April," Kaiya Watanabe, the university's secretary general, said.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080121TDY02310.htm
Universities work to keep applications up
With tests by the National Center for University Entrance Examinations kicking off the university entrance examination season Saturday, students are doing their best to score high marks to enter universities of their choice.
Universities, on the other hand, are struggling to fill enrollment quotas amid a dwindling population of 18-year-olds, a situation that will soon see the number of university applicants matching placements available.
The gap between major universities, which attract more than 100,000 applicants, and those having difficulty meeting their quotas has become apparent.
Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto received 98,800 applications last year, but Vice Chancellor Masatsugu Hongo said the university will try to increase that number to more than 100,000 for the first time in four years.
To reach this goal, Ritsumeikan increased its number of examination venues from 19 to 30 in cities across the country.
Hongo said the number of applicants is a barometer of a university's popularity.
"Once application figures decline, it's hard to return them to old levels. We want to secure 100,000 applicants to remain a 'winner,'" he said.
Last year, three universities received more than 100,000 applicants. Waseda University had the largest number with 125,000 applicants.
This year, to speed up procedures for enrolling students, three Waseda faculties have set up an intake quota to accept students solely based on results of the standardized exams.
Waseda charges 20,000 yen to 35,000 yen for each entrance examination. In the 2006 academic year, its examination fees came to 4.98 billion yen, or 5 percent of its total revenues.
Last spring, Meiji University adopted a unified test that enabled applicants to apply to several faculties with the results of one test, breaking the 100,000 mark for the first time in 16 years.
This year, Meiji established a new faculty--School of Global Japanese Studies--and will hold a unified test for all faculties in seven cities in hopes of increasing the number of applicants.
Kansai University, which drew more than 100,000 applicants for the first time by holding entrance exams in 21 cities last year, decided to also hold exams in Kagoshima this year.
As Kansai University's examination fees totaled about 2.78 billion yen, or 6.5 percent of its revenues in academic 2006, the university said the fees are very important for university finances.
Hosei University had 90,000 applicants last year.
According to estimates by a major cram school, last year Nihon University had 71,000 applicants, Rikkyo University 68,000 and Chuo University 66,000.
According to a survey last spring by the Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools of Japan, an external organization of the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, the 559 private universities in the country had 3.02 million applicants.
Of them, 1.44 million concentrated on 23 major universities.
As such, the number of universities failing to meet intake quotas has risen.
In academic years 2006 and 2007, about 40 percent of private universities failed to meet intake quotas.
Since peaking at 2.05 million in 1992, the population of 18-year-olds hit 1.24 million this year, a factor expected to further increase the number of universities with unmet enrollment quotas.
Universities' deviation value--which indicates a university's entrance examination difficulty--and name recognition are the main factors that sway the number of applicants.
Sundai Yobiko, a major cram school, believes that Nihon, Toyo, Komazawa and Senshu universities are the borderline that divides universities into major and minor categories.
In addition to those four, Daito Bunka, Asia, Teikyo and Kokushikan universities, which have an even lower deviation value, used to be students' second or third choice when they applied to more than one university. However, with a decline in the number of examinees, the number of applicants for universities of their second choice and third choice also has dropped.
Kokushikan University saw its number of applicants for general entrance examinations plunge from 45,000 in 1992 to 9,500 last year. Asia University's applicants fell from 32,000 in 1991 to 11,000 last year.
Shinzo Ishii, head of Asia University's entrance examination department, said it was hard to compete with first-rate private universities that have launched reforms.
"As a decline in the number of applicants would lower the university's deviation value, we're trying to keep the current number from falling," he said.
Iwate, Akita and Kagoshima universities, which are local national universities, will hold entrance examination tests in Tokyo to attract students from other areas. Two other local national universities, Toyama and Yamanashi universities, will hold similar tests in Nagoya.
Since 1983, Shinshu University has held entrance examinations for the Economics department in Tokyo. Last year, it held tests for its Economics and Arts departments in Tokyo and Osaka.
About 20 percent to 40 percent of the applicants took the two departments' first tests in Tokyo and Osaka.
Yuji Nishimura, section chief of Shinshu University's entrance examination department, said the university holds entrance exams in Tokyo and Osaka because of their large populations.
"If local national universities don't actively promote themselves to students, able students won't apply," he said.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080121TDY03103.htm
Universities, on the other hand, are struggling to fill enrollment quotas amid a dwindling population of 18-year-olds, a situation that will soon see the number of university applicants matching placements available.
The gap between major universities, which attract more than 100,000 applicants, and those having difficulty meeting their quotas has become apparent.
Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto received 98,800 applications last year, but Vice Chancellor Masatsugu Hongo said the university will try to increase that number to more than 100,000 for the first time in four years.
To reach this goal, Ritsumeikan increased its number of examination venues from 19 to 30 in cities across the country.
Hongo said the number of applicants is a barometer of a university's popularity.
"Once application figures decline, it's hard to return them to old levels. We want to secure 100,000 applicants to remain a 'winner,'" he said.
Last year, three universities received more than 100,000 applicants. Waseda University had the largest number with 125,000 applicants.
This year, to speed up procedures for enrolling students, three Waseda faculties have set up an intake quota to accept students solely based on results of the standardized exams.
Waseda charges 20,000 yen to 35,000 yen for each entrance examination. In the 2006 academic year, its examination fees came to 4.98 billion yen, or 5 percent of its total revenues.
Last spring, Meiji University adopted a unified test that enabled applicants to apply to several faculties with the results of one test, breaking the 100,000 mark for the first time in 16 years.
This year, Meiji established a new faculty--School of Global Japanese Studies--and will hold a unified test for all faculties in seven cities in hopes of increasing the number of applicants.
Kansai University, which drew more than 100,000 applicants for the first time by holding entrance exams in 21 cities last year, decided to also hold exams in Kagoshima this year.
As Kansai University's examination fees totaled about 2.78 billion yen, or 6.5 percent of its revenues in academic 2006, the university said the fees are very important for university finances.
Hosei University had 90,000 applicants last year.
According to estimates by a major cram school, last year Nihon University had 71,000 applicants, Rikkyo University 68,000 and Chuo University 66,000.
According to a survey last spring by the Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools of Japan, an external organization of the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, the 559 private universities in the country had 3.02 million applicants.
Of them, 1.44 million concentrated on 23 major universities.
As such, the number of universities failing to meet intake quotas has risen.
In academic years 2006 and 2007, about 40 percent of private universities failed to meet intake quotas.
Since peaking at 2.05 million in 1992, the population of 18-year-olds hit 1.24 million this year, a factor expected to further increase the number of universities with unmet enrollment quotas.
Universities' deviation value--which indicates a university's entrance examination difficulty--and name recognition are the main factors that sway the number of applicants.
Sundai Yobiko, a major cram school, believes that Nihon, Toyo, Komazawa and Senshu universities are the borderline that divides universities into major and minor categories.
In addition to those four, Daito Bunka, Asia, Teikyo and Kokushikan universities, which have an even lower deviation value, used to be students' second or third choice when they applied to more than one university. However, with a decline in the number of examinees, the number of applicants for universities of their second choice and third choice also has dropped.
Kokushikan University saw its number of applicants for general entrance examinations plunge from 45,000 in 1992 to 9,500 last year. Asia University's applicants fell from 32,000 in 1991 to 11,000 last year.
Shinzo Ishii, head of Asia University's entrance examination department, said it was hard to compete with first-rate private universities that have launched reforms.
"As a decline in the number of applicants would lower the university's deviation value, we're trying to keep the current number from falling," he said.
Iwate, Akita and Kagoshima universities, which are local national universities, will hold entrance examination tests in Tokyo to attract students from other areas. Two other local national universities, Toyama and Yamanashi universities, will hold similar tests in Nagoya.
Since 1983, Shinshu University has held entrance examinations for the Economics department in Tokyo. Last year, it held tests for its Economics and Arts departments in Tokyo and Osaka.
About 20 percent to 40 percent of the applicants took the two departments' first tests in Tokyo and Osaka.
Yuji Nishimura, section chief of Shinshu University's entrance examination department, said the university holds entrance exams in Tokyo and Osaka because of their large populations.
"If local national universities don't actively promote themselves to students, able students won't apply," he said.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080121TDY03103.htm
Cellphone varsity class opens in Japan
Tokyo - Japanese already use cellphones to shop, read novels, exchange email, search for restaurants and take video clips.
Now, they're taking a university course.
Cyber University, the nation's only university to offer all classes only on the Internet, began offering a class on the mysteries of the pyramids on mobile phones Wednesday.
For classes for personal computers, the lecture downloads play on the monitor as text and images in the middle, and a smaller video of the lecturer shows in the corner, complete with sound.The cellphone version, which pops up as streaming video on the handset's tiny screen, plays just the Power Point images.
In a demonstration Wednesday at a Tokyo hotel, an image of the pyramids popped up on the screen and changed to a text image as a professor's voice played from the handset speakers.
Cyber University, which opened in April with government approval to give bachelor's degrees, has 1 850 students.The virtual campus is 71 percent owned by Softbank, a major Japanese mobile carrier, which also has broadband operations and offers online gaming, shopping and electronic stock trading services.
The cellphone lectures may be expanded to other courses but for now will be for the pyramids course, according to Cyber University, which offers about 100 courses, including ancient Chinese culture, online journalism and English literature.
Unlike the other classes, the one on cell phones will be available to the public for free, although viewers must pay phone fees.The catch is the lectures can only be seen on some Softbank phones. The service may be expanded to other carriers, officials said.
Sakuji Yoshimura, who heads Cyber University and gives the pyramids course, said the university gives educational opportunities for people who find it hard to attend real-life universities, including those with jobs, the handicapped and the sick.
"Our duty as educators is to respond to the needs of people who want to learn," Yoshimura said.He scoffed at those who question the value of Internet and cellphone classes, noting attendance is relatively high at 86 percent.
Whether students play the lecture downloads to the end can be monitored by the university digitally, officials said.
Although real-time exchange with professors and other students isn't possible in Net classes, social networking and other cyber-discussions are flourishing, said Hiroshi Kawahara, professor in the Faculty of Information Technology and Business.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=126&art_id=vn20080119132543324C677070
Now, they're taking a university course.
Cyber University, the nation's only university to offer all classes only on the Internet, began offering a class on the mysteries of the pyramids on mobile phones Wednesday.
For classes for personal computers, the lecture downloads play on the monitor as text and images in the middle, and a smaller video of the lecturer shows in the corner, complete with sound.The cellphone version, which pops up as streaming video on the handset's tiny screen, plays just the Power Point images.
In a demonstration Wednesday at a Tokyo hotel, an image of the pyramids popped up on the screen and changed to a text image as a professor's voice played from the handset speakers.
Cyber University, which opened in April with government approval to give bachelor's degrees, has 1 850 students.The virtual campus is 71 percent owned by Softbank, a major Japanese mobile carrier, which also has broadband operations and offers online gaming, shopping and electronic stock trading services.
The cellphone lectures may be expanded to other courses but for now will be for the pyramids course, according to Cyber University, which offers about 100 courses, including ancient Chinese culture, online journalism and English literature.
Unlike the other classes, the one on cell phones will be available to the public for free, although viewers must pay phone fees.The catch is the lectures can only be seen on some Softbank phones. The service may be expanded to other carriers, officials said.
Sakuji Yoshimura, who heads Cyber University and gives the pyramids course, said the university gives educational opportunities for people who find it hard to attend real-life universities, including those with jobs, the handicapped and the sick.
"Our duty as educators is to respond to the needs of people who want to learn," Yoshimura said.He scoffed at those who question the value of Internet and cellphone classes, noting attendance is relatively high at 86 percent.
Whether students play the lecture downloads to the end can be monitored by the university digitally, officials said.
Although real-time exchange with professors and other students isn't possible in Net classes, social networking and other cyber-discussions are flourishing, said Hiroshi Kawahara, professor in the Faculty of Information Technology and Business.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=126&art_id=vn20080119132543324C677070
Japanese expat schools to serve locals
Due to the high esteem in which Japanese-style education is held in the Middle East and other regions, the government has decided to allow local students to attend overseas-based Japanese schools that cater for expat Japanese children, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Saturday.
The schools are run by local Japanese community groups and students' parents with assistance from the Japanese government.
According to the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, 23 of the 84 schools for Japanese expatriates in 50 countries around the world had established a class in which subjects are taught in both Japanese and the local language, as of April last year.
A total of only 98 local students participated in the class at schools in Shanghai, Seoul and other cities, comprising a mere 0.5 percent of the schools' 19,000 students.
Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates has been encouraging local children since 2006 to attend the kindergarten affiliated with the city's Japanese school.
The emirate plans to further encourage these children to enter its Japanese primary and middle schools, and is discussing a plan to send the middle school graduates to study at a high school in Japan.
The government in Qatar has contacted its Japanese counterpart to ascertain if it can obtain Japanese government support in establishing a school to educate local children based on the Japanese education system.
The Chinese government also has been encouraging overseas-based schools for Chinese expatriates to accept locals.
The Japanese government plans to boost the number of local students studying at the Japanese schools to about 10 percent of the student body.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080120TDY02311.htm
The schools are run by local Japanese community groups and students' parents with assistance from the Japanese government.
According to the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, 23 of the 84 schools for Japanese expatriates in 50 countries around the world had established a class in which subjects are taught in both Japanese and the local language, as of April last year.
A total of only 98 local students participated in the class at schools in Shanghai, Seoul and other cities, comprising a mere 0.5 percent of the schools' 19,000 students.
Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates has been encouraging local children since 2006 to attend the kindergarten affiliated with the city's Japanese school.
The emirate plans to further encourage these children to enter its Japanese primary and middle schools, and is discussing a plan to send the middle school graduates to study at a high school in Japan.
The government in Qatar has contacted its Japanese counterpart to ascertain if it can obtain Japanese government support in establishing a school to educate local children based on the Japanese education system.
The Chinese government also has been encouraging overseas-based schools for Chinese expatriates to accept locals.
The Japanese government plans to boost the number of local students studying at the Japanese schools to about 10 percent of the student body.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20080120TDY02311.htm
Unified university entrance exams begin across Japan
Two-day unified entrance exams for universities and colleges began Saturday at 736 test centers across Japan, with a record 777 universities and colleges taking part.
This year's applicants totaled 543,385, down about 10,000 from last year, reflecting decreasing childbirths.
Exams on civics, geography and history, and Japanese and foreign languages will be held Saturday. Exams covering science and math will be given Sunday.
Saturday's exams include an English listening comprehension test introduced in 2006 to boost the ability of Japanese to communicate in the language.
The ratio of final-year high school students to total applicants stood at 78.8 percent, the highest level so far, and that of those who graduated from high school earlier totaled 20.0 percent.
The government began organizing unified exams for national and local government-run universities and colleges in academic year 1979 and upgraded them in academic year 1990 for use also by private universities and colleges.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/080119/kyodo/d8u8kgv01.html
This year's applicants totaled 543,385, down about 10,000 from last year, reflecting decreasing childbirths.
Exams on civics, geography and history, and Japanese and foreign languages will be held Saturday. Exams covering science and math will be given Sunday.
Saturday's exams include an English listening comprehension test introduced in 2006 to boost the ability of Japanese to communicate in the language.
The ratio of final-year high school students to total applicants stood at 78.8 percent, the highest level so far, and that of those who graduated from high school earlier totaled 20.0 percent.
The government began organizing unified exams for national and local government-run universities and colleges in academic year 1979 and upgraded them in academic year 1990 for use also by private universities and colleges.
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/080119/kyodo/d8u8kgv01.html
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Desperately seeking students
Japan's universities face a crisis as the supply of young people begins to dry up. Could it happen here?
Almost every day, scores of desperate teenagers tune in to Nippon Housou Kyokai - Japan's equivalent of the BBC. Not for some light relief from schoolwork, but for a show that helps them to cram for tough university entrance exams.
For how much longer though? Japan has one of the oldest and most well-respected higher education systems in Asia. But these days it is in crisis.
Up to 40% of Japan's 744 universities could go bust, merge or close in the next 10 years, according to research by a British professor at Oxford, out later this year.
Decades of falling birthrates have shrunk the number of 18-year-olds, who provide 90% of all university entrants, down to 1.3 million last year from 2.05 million in 1992. With no baby boom or immigration influx on the horizon, the figure is expected to further plummet to 1.18 million by 2012 - an overall decrease of 42.3% over 20 years.
Japan's universities increasingly struggle to fill their government-authorised number of places, says Roger Goodman, professor of modern Japanese studies at Oxford. His study on Japanese education will be published in a chapter of a book called The Demographic Challenge: A Handbook About Japan. "The Japanese higher education system is facing a contraction, possibly better described as an implosion, of a type never seen before," he says.
Nearly 75% of Japan's universities are private and run four- or two-year courses. They are considered second-class to the country's 87 national universities, which makes them most vulnerable to student recruitment problems.
And vulnerable they are. Goodman reveals that 30% of four-year private universities had failed to fill their student quota in 2004. The figure was 40% for two-year universities. And this when the real demographic drop has not yet kicked in.
The Japanese government is quite happy to let the market decide how the system is "hollowed out", says Goodman. "It has no intention of baling these universities out.
"The result is that many institutions - estimates suggest between 15% and 40% - will go bankrupt, merge or be taken over by larger universities within the next decade," he says.
"Universities in Japan are on the brink," agrees Ian Reader, professor of Japanese studies at Manchester University. "There is increasing stress across the higher education sector there."
No one is saying how many mergers, closures or takeovers have already taken place or are on the cards. But a particularly high-profile case is Hagi International University, which sought court protection for bankruptcy in 2005. Hagi was bought by a construction firm and relaunched last year as an institution specialising in the health sciences.
What implications does all this have for the quality of degrees in the east Asian giant, which is home to three universities ranked in the world's top 60 - Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka?
"The pinch is coming at the lower end of the prestige scale," says Reader. "As numbers of potential students fall, the universities higher up the pecking order are drawing more of their intake from groups that would have gone to lower-ranked universities. The less prestigious universities are especially having a hard time."
Goodman predicts that entry to the lower-level private universities will become a "free pass". Half of students already no longer need to sit an exam to get in, he says.
"Institutions will end up admitting lower-ability students with little or no motivation to study simply because they need their fees, which make up about 80% of the university's income.
"Japan's leading national universities will continue to be protected by state support. The leading private universities will continue to be protected by their reputation and alumni networks. But rural, public and local universities and lower-level private universities face a bleak future, if indeed they have a future at all."
It's bad planning that has let this happen, argues Andrew Gerstle, professor of Japanese studies at London's School of African and Oriental Studies.
The Japanese government has let the number of universities rise since the 1990s, knowing full well there was a demographic disaster looming.
There was a 30% increase in the number of universities in the 1990s because of a liberalisation of the sector. Colleges thought it was their last chance to obtain university status. Then, between 2000 and 2006, the number of universities grew further from 649 to 744.
The education attache of the Japanese embassy in London, Takahiro Okamoto, accepts that there is going to be an oversupply of universities. But Okamoto told Education Guardian the Japanese government was creating a "safety net", which included mergers and planning for transferrals of students between institutions.
"To survive the global competition among universities, each institution in Japan is trying to create a unique selling point for itself," he says. "For example, there are universities that focus on attracting office workers to study part-time and those that are trying to recruit as many foreign students as they can."
Japanese universities are also starting to teach classes in English in a last-ditch attempt to recruit students from outside Japan. Waseda University is one example. Its international studies faculty now runs the majority of lectures in English.
Japan's predicament might ring alarm bells for those in the know in the UK. The number of our 18-year-olds is predicted to fall dramatically between 2010 and 2019 because of fewer births in the 1990s. By 2019, there will be 120,000 fewer school-leavers in the population than a decade earlier. By 2050, the proportion of 15- to 24-year-olds will make up just 11% of the population. It was 16% in 1990.
There is no need for apocalyptic visions of much-loved institutions going under. Ours is, by all accounts, a far less dramatic situation than that faced in Japan.
And anyway, our universities faced a similar emergency to Japan's in the 1980s and responded successfully by increasing the range of graduate courses and opening doors to more part-time, mature and overseas students.
But, all the same, are there any lessons we can learn from Japan?
In many ways, our HE sector has mitigated against disaster, argues Professor Sir David Watson, chair of higher education management at the Institute of Education. "Fewer than 50% of our students are full-time, young and taking their first degrees."
A Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) paper, Demand for Higher Education to 2020 and Beyond, argued that closing the gender gulf by getting more boys into university was crucial to maintaining and expanding numbers in the sector. But the thinktank's director, Bahram Bekhradnia, does not think the demographic decline we face poses a threat to the majority of institutions.
Those that could be hit, reckons Gerstle, are the less prestigious, the recently founded and those in rural areas.
In other words, it's more than likely we'll be all right. The same cannot be said on the other side of the world.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2240694,00.html
Almost every day, scores of desperate teenagers tune in to Nippon Housou Kyokai - Japan's equivalent of the BBC. Not for some light relief from schoolwork, but for a show that helps them to cram for tough university entrance exams.
For how much longer though? Japan has one of the oldest and most well-respected higher education systems in Asia. But these days it is in crisis.
Up to 40% of Japan's 744 universities could go bust, merge or close in the next 10 years, according to research by a British professor at Oxford, out later this year.
Decades of falling birthrates have shrunk the number of 18-year-olds, who provide 90% of all university entrants, down to 1.3 million last year from 2.05 million in 1992. With no baby boom or immigration influx on the horizon, the figure is expected to further plummet to 1.18 million by 2012 - an overall decrease of 42.3% over 20 years.
Japan's universities increasingly struggle to fill their government-authorised number of places, says Roger Goodman, professor of modern Japanese studies at Oxford. His study on Japanese education will be published in a chapter of a book called The Demographic Challenge: A Handbook About Japan. "The Japanese higher education system is facing a contraction, possibly better described as an implosion, of a type never seen before," he says.
Nearly 75% of Japan's universities are private and run four- or two-year courses. They are considered second-class to the country's 87 national universities, which makes them most vulnerable to student recruitment problems.
And vulnerable they are. Goodman reveals that 30% of four-year private universities had failed to fill their student quota in 2004. The figure was 40% for two-year universities. And this when the real demographic drop has not yet kicked in.
The Japanese government is quite happy to let the market decide how the system is "hollowed out", says Goodman. "It has no intention of baling these universities out.
"The result is that many institutions - estimates suggest between 15% and 40% - will go bankrupt, merge or be taken over by larger universities within the next decade," he says.
"Universities in Japan are on the brink," agrees Ian Reader, professor of Japanese studies at Manchester University. "There is increasing stress across the higher education sector there."
No one is saying how many mergers, closures or takeovers have already taken place or are on the cards. But a particularly high-profile case is Hagi International University, which sought court protection for bankruptcy in 2005. Hagi was bought by a construction firm and relaunched last year as an institution specialising in the health sciences.
What implications does all this have for the quality of degrees in the east Asian giant, which is home to three universities ranked in the world's top 60 - Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka?
"The pinch is coming at the lower end of the prestige scale," says Reader. "As numbers of potential students fall, the universities higher up the pecking order are drawing more of their intake from groups that would have gone to lower-ranked universities. The less prestigious universities are especially having a hard time."
Goodman predicts that entry to the lower-level private universities will become a "free pass". Half of students already no longer need to sit an exam to get in, he says.
"Institutions will end up admitting lower-ability students with little or no motivation to study simply because they need their fees, which make up about 80% of the university's income.
"Japan's leading national universities will continue to be protected by state support. The leading private universities will continue to be protected by their reputation and alumni networks. But rural, public and local universities and lower-level private universities face a bleak future, if indeed they have a future at all."
It's bad planning that has let this happen, argues Andrew Gerstle, professor of Japanese studies at London's School of African and Oriental Studies.
The Japanese government has let the number of universities rise since the 1990s, knowing full well there was a demographic disaster looming.
There was a 30% increase in the number of universities in the 1990s because of a liberalisation of the sector. Colleges thought it was their last chance to obtain university status. Then, between 2000 and 2006, the number of universities grew further from 649 to 744.
The education attache of the Japanese embassy in London, Takahiro Okamoto, accepts that there is going to be an oversupply of universities. But Okamoto told Education Guardian the Japanese government was creating a "safety net", which included mergers and planning for transferrals of students between institutions.
"To survive the global competition among universities, each institution in Japan is trying to create a unique selling point for itself," he says. "For example, there are universities that focus on attracting office workers to study part-time and those that are trying to recruit as many foreign students as they can."
Japanese universities are also starting to teach classes in English in a last-ditch attempt to recruit students from outside Japan. Waseda University is one example. Its international studies faculty now runs the majority of lectures in English.
Japan's predicament might ring alarm bells for those in the know in the UK. The number of our 18-year-olds is predicted to fall dramatically between 2010 and 2019 because of fewer births in the 1990s. By 2019, there will be 120,000 fewer school-leavers in the population than a decade earlier. By 2050, the proportion of 15- to 24-year-olds will make up just 11% of the population. It was 16% in 1990.
There is no need for apocalyptic visions of much-loved institutions going under. Ours is, by all accounts, a far less dramatic situation than that faced in Japan.
And anyway, our universities faced a similar emergency to Japan's in the 1980s and responded successfully by increasing the range of graduate courses and opening doors to more part-time, mature and overseas students.
But, all the same, are there any lessons we can learn from Japan?
In many ways, our HE sector has mitigated against disaster, argues Professor Sir David Watson, chair of higher education management at the Institute of Education. "Fewer than 50% of our students are full-time, young and taking their first degrees."
A Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) paper, Demand for Higher Education to 2020 and Beyond, argued that closing the gender gulf by getting more boys into university was crucial to maintaining and expanding numbers in the sector. But the thinktank's director, Bahram Bekhradnia, does not think the demographic decline we face poses a threat to the majority of institutions.
Those that could be hit, reckons Gerstle, are the less prestigious, the recently founded and those in rural areas.
In other words, it's more than likely we'll be all right. The same cannot be said on the other side of the world.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2240694,00.html
Record 137,251 researchers sent abroad in fiscal 2005
A record high 137,251 Japanese researchers were dispatched abroad to foreign institutions in fiscal 2005, according to a survey conducted by the Education, Science and Technology Ministry.
Foreign researchers coming to Japan also hit a record high of 34,939 in fiscal 2005, highlighting growth in international exchanges for research, the ministry said.
The ministry sent a questionnaire to 855 national, prefectural, municipal and private universities, research institutes and experiment centers.
It asked how many researchers the institutions sent abroad and the number of foreign researchers they accepted between April 2005 and March 2006, and received responses from 765 institutions.
Researchers dispatched abroad increased 12,130, or 9.7 percent, from fiscal 2004, and foreign researchers at Japanese institutions increased by 3,567, or 11.4 percent.
Asia was the most common destination for researchers, followed by Europe and North America. Though Africa came in sixth, the number grew rapidly with 1,639 researchers being dispatched, an increase 35.9 percent from the previous fiscal year.
Asia was also where most visiting researchers in Japan came from, followed by Europe and North America.
A ministry spokesman said: "The number of researchers going abroad for less than a month is increasing, as well as foreign researchers coming to Japan."
"We believe that joint international research projects are increasing and researchers belonging to the same teams are exchanging visits between Japan and foreign countries," the spokesman said.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/science/20080115TDY02309.htm
Foreign researchers coming to Japan also hit a record high of 34,939 in fiscal 2005, highlighting growth in international exchanges for research, the ministry said.
The ministry sent a questionnaire to 855 national, prefectural, municipal and private universities, research institutes and experiment centers.
It asked how many researchers the institutions sent abroad and the number of foreign researchers they accepted between April 2005 and March 2006, and received responses from 765 institutions.
Researchers dispatched abroad increased 12,130, or 9.7 percent, from fiscal 2004, and foreign researchers at Japanese institutions increased by 3,567, or 11.4 percent.
Asia was the most common destination for researchers, followed by Europe and North America. Though Africa came in sixth, the number grew rapidly with 1,639 researchers being dispatched, an increase 35.9 percent from the previous fiscal year.
Asia was also where most visiting researchers in Japan came from, followed by Europe and North America.
A ministry spokesman said: "The number of researchers going abroad for less than a month is increasing, as well as foreign researchers coming to Japan."
"We believe that joint international research projects are increasing and researchers belonging to the same teams are exchanging visits between Japan and foreign countries," the spokesman said.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/science/20080115TDY02309.htm
Japanese student influx
JAPANESE schoolchildren will boost tourism numbers to north Queensland with more than 14,000 expected to visit Cairns on school trips.
Those numbers are projected during the next three years.The deal breaks a 10-year stronghold on this business by New Zealand.
Melbourne and Singapore had also lobbied for the contract, which will see 12 charter flights from the Japanese city of Fukuoka to Cairns in November each year until 2011.
Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive Rob Giason said the students would spend two nights in farmstays around the Atherton Tablelands and Innisfail during their trips.
Japanese visits to Queensland have slumped in recent years, but Mr Giason said there had been some slowing in the decline.
In the year to September, more than 362,000 Japanese visitors came to Queensland and 211,000 of them visited the Cairns region.
It was a drop of 11 per cent on the previous year.
But despite the protracted decline in numbers, Japan is still Queensland's second largest source of tourists.
Tourism Minister Desley Boyle said securing the charter flights was an example of the innovative methods needed to bring more Japanese visitors to the north.
"Not only do these flights help promote Queensland as a school excursion destination, they also provide thousands of Japanese students with a lifetime of memories," Ms Boyle said.
"Young people very often have a favourite place that they visit and they may return with family and friends at a later date."
As part of its bid to get more Japanese tourists holidaying in Queensland, Tropical Tourism North Queensland recently hosted travel agents from Osaka and Nagoya, the two ports that connect directly to Cairns on Jetstar flights.
A new website, based around the colours of Queensland, has been created to appeal to the Japanese market.
It is hoped they will be enticed by the colourful images.
A competition will be held encouraging Japanese viewers to select three of their favourite colours on the site, with a trip to Queensland as the prize.
Ms Boyle said tourism authorities would work with major airlines to make Queensland more affordable for Japanese visitors.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,23045900-3122,00.html?from=public_rss
Those numbers are projected during the next three years.The deal breaks a 10-year stronghold on this business by New Zealand.
Melbourne and Singapore had also lobbied for the contract, which will see 12 charter flights from the Japanese city of Fukuoka to Cairns in November each year until 2011.
Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive Rob Giason said the students would spend two nights in farmstays around the Atherton Tablelands and Innisfail during their trips.
Japanese visits to Queensland have slumped in recent years, but Mr Giason said there had been some slowing in the decline.
In the year to September, more than 362,000 Japanese visitors came to Queensland and 211,000 of them visited the Cairns region.
It was a drop of 11 per cent on the previous year.
But despite the protracted decline in numbers, Japan is still Queensland's second largest source of tourists.
Tourism Minister Desley Boyle said securing the charter flights was an example of the innovative methods needed to bring more Japanese visitors to the north.
"Not only do these flights help promote Queensland as a school excursion destination, they also provide thousands of Japanese students with a lifetime of memories," Ms Boyle said.
"Young people very often have a favourite place that they visit and they may return with family and friends at a later date."
As part of its bid to get more Japanese tourists holidaying in Queensland, Tropical Tourism North Queensland recently hosted travel agents from Osaka and Nagoya, the two ports that connect directly to Cairns on Jetstar flights.
A new website, based around the colours of Queensland, has been created to appeal to the Japanese market.
It is hoped they will be enticed by the colourful images.
A competition will be held encouraging Japanese viewers to select three of their favourite colours on the site, with a trip to Queensland as the prize.
Ms Boyle said tourism authorities would work with major airlines to make Queensland more affordable for Japanese visitors.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,23045900-3122,00.html?from=public_rss
Monday, January 07, 2008
Waseda grad school to groom true newshounds
There is no doubt that Japan has produced its share of top-notch journalists: noted political writer Takashi Tachibana, war photographer Ryuichi Hirokawa and videographer Kenji Nagai, who was shot dead in September while reporting close up on the unrest in Myanmar, to cite but a few.
Be that as it may, scholars and media professionals say that, across the board, Japan's news industry is in need of some big fixes. With shortcomings at every stage of the journalism process, the result is news coverage so uncritical and dull that it fails to meet the needs of a democratic citizenry.
Waseda University in Tokyo wants to answer the call. In April, it will launch what it bills as Japan's "first genuine journalism graduate school," a fully accredited two-year program it hopes will fill the country's newsrooms with a new breed of reporter.
"It will happen in stepwise fashion. As reporters equipped with the necessary skills go out one by one, we hope they will change the system from the inside," said Seishi Sato, dean of Waseda's political science graduate school and one of the founders of the journalism program.
Ask media critics exactly what needs mending and you get a laundry list.
News outlets, they say, frequently pack reports with lots of data but too little context, overwhelming citizens with facts without connecting the dots. Story angles that stray too far from accepted norms are smothered at birth, sometimes by journalists themselves afraid of standing out from the crowd.
The litany continues: A foreign journalist complained that news stories in the Japanese press tend to lack focus and structure, while other readers call them too formulaic and dry. One midcareer Japanese journalist said he wants television stations to pursue more undercover exposes.
And whether their work shows up in print or on the air, reporters from all mainstream media show a worrisome tendency to bow to authority when they should challenge it, according to observers like Waseda's Sato.
"In Japan, the press club system is mighty," he said, referring to the arrangement at agencies and political parties in which power-holders parcel information to journalists on the unwritten agreement that the press toes the line. "Reporting is done within certain limits, with an eye to the relationships maintained within the clubs."
Putting it more bluntly is longtime Japan correspondent Henry Scott Stokes, a native of England who over the years has followed domestic news as Tokyo bureau chief for The Financial Times, The Times of London and The New York Times. He frequently marvels, he said, at how reluctant media outlets have been to do tough reporting.
"The great issue is how on earth to teach people to ask questions, because this demands a complete revolution in the way of thinking here," said Scott Stokes, 69, who currently writes for Economist.com and Institutional Investor.
Waseda wants that revolution to begin inside its "J-school" classes.
The outgrowth of a pre-existing training program in Waseda's political science department that focuses on science and technology reporting, Waseda's new program also draws inspiration from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York and graduate-level media programs at Imperial College London and The Australian National University, among several other overseas journalism schools.
High standards will be kept, Sato said. Media instructors — veteran journalists from Japan's top media organs who presumably harbor the same dissatisfaction with the status quo as the critics — will be expected to press students to polish and repolish their work until it is suitably informative and well-composed, whether the project be a lengthy print article or video documentary.
The program will also offer lectures by Waseda professors on the history of the press, media and the Constitution, crime, the environment, public welfare, economics, foreign relations, political science and many other topics aimed at firing up students with a sense of civic mission and providing the basic knowledge to carry it out.
Some classes will be taught in English to foster international exchanges with foreign students and to prepare Japanese students for the global workplace.
The inaugural class will consist of 40 students mostly chosen by an exam last September, in which applicants were required to demonstrate English proficiency and a knowledge of media issues, according to Sato, adding that a followup exam will be given in February for special applicants.
New graduates will account for about two-thirds of the class, with the remainder professionals in midcareer. Graduates who complete a thesis will receive a master's degree.
A journalism graduate degree doesn't come cheap: The 9 1/2-month program at Columbia's J-School, for example, costs $37,600.
Tuition for the Waseda J-school program is far less expensive at ¥860,000 for the first year and ¥600,500 for the second, but cash-strapped twentysomethings might wonder whether on-the-job training is the more affordable choice.
Yasuomi Sawa, a 17-year Kyodo News staff reporter, however, sees an important role for Waseda's J-School.
As a member of the Reporting and Communications Discussion Group, comprising journalists from top Japanese news organizations seeking ways to improve their industry, Sawa has closely followed the development of Waseda's program and considers it a means of injecting needed elements of journalism from around the world into Japan.
Sawa recently spent nine months as a Reuters journalism fellow at Oxford University, where he concluded that British media were far more willing to ruffle feathers — a quality he felt fueled a healthy public dialogue.
"Someone over there said to me, 'What is the role of journalism? It is to provoke an argument.' I thought that was impressive," Sawa said.
Waseda's journalism school, he suggested, should be a laboratory allowing Japan to develop a similarly aggressive brand of journalism for itself.
"I don't think a J-school can do it all, but the opportunities are there," he said.
Scott Stokes was also optimistic about the Waseda J-School's prospects, but cautiously so.
"I think it can make a tremendous contribution. But I also think it can take 50 years to build a respected institution," he said. "It's not something they should set out to accomplish overnight."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080104f1.html
Be that as it may, scholars and media professionals say that, across the board, Japan's news industry is in need of some big fixes. With shortcomings at every stage of the journalism process, the result is news coverage so uncritical and dull that it fails to meet the needs of a democratic citizenry.
Waseda University in Tokyo wants to answer the call. In April, it will launch what it bills as Japan's "first genuine journalism graduate school," a fully accredited two-year program it hopes will fill the country's newsrooms with a new breed of reporter.
"It will happen in stepwise fashion. As reporters equipped with the necessary skills go out one by one, we hope they will change the system from the inside," said Seishi Sato, dean of Waseda's political science graduate school and one of the founders of the journalism program.
Ask media critics exactly what needs mending and you get a laundry list.
News outlets, they say, frequently pack reports with lots of data but too little context, overwhelming citizens with facts without connecting the dots. Story angles that stray too far from accepted norms are smothered at birth, sometimes by journalists themselves afraid of standing out from the crowd.
The litany continues: A foreign journalist complained that news stories in the Japanese press tend to lack focus and structure, while other readers call them too formulaic and dry. One midcareer Japanese journalist said he wants television stations to pursue more undercover exposes.
And whether their work shows up in print or on the air, reporters from all mainstream media show a worrisome tendency to bow to authority when they should challenge it, according to observers like Waseda's Sato.
"In Japan, the press club system is mighty," he said, referring to the arrangement at agencies and political parties in which power-holders parcel information to journalists on the unwritten agreement that the press toes the line. "Reporting is done within certain limits, with an eye to the relationships maintained within the clubs."
Putting it more bluntly is longtime Japan correspondent Henry Scott Stokes, a native of England who over the years has followed domestic news as Tokyo bureau chief for The Financial Times, The Times of London and The New York Times. He frequently marvels, he said, at how reluctant media outlets have been to do tough reporting.
"The great issue is how on earth to teach people to ask questions, because this demands a complete revolution in the way of thinking here," said Scott Stokes, 69, who currently writes for Economist.com and Institutional Investor.
Waseda wants that revolution to begin inside its "J-school" classes.
The outgrowth of a pre-existing training program in Waseda's political science department that focuses on science and technology reporting, Waseda's new program also draws inspiration from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York and graduate-level media programs at Imperial College London and The Australian National University, among several other overseas journalism schools.
High standards will be kept, Sato said. Media instructors — veteran journalists from Japan's top media organs who presumably harbor the same dissatisfaction with the status quo as the critics — will be expected to press students to polish and repolish their work until it is suitably informative and well-composed, whether the project be a lengthy print article or video documentary.
The program will also offer lectures by Waseda professors on the history of the press, media and the Constitution, crime, the environment, public welfare, economics, foreign relations, political science and many other topics aimed at firing up students with a sense of civic mission and providing the basic knowledge to carry it out.
Some classes will be taught in English to foster international exchanges with foreign students and to prepare Japanese students for the global workplace.
The inaugural class will consist of 40 students mostly chosen by an exam last September, in which applicants were required to demonstrate English proficiency and a knowledge of media issues, according to Sato, adding that a followup exam will be given in February for special applicants.
New graduates will account for about two-thirds of the class, with the remainder professionals in midcareer. Graduates who complete a thesis will receive a master's degree.
A journalism graduate degree doesn't come cheap: The 9 1/2-month program at Columbia's J-School, for example, costs $37,600.
Tuition for the Waseda J-school program is far less expensive at ¥860,000 for the first year and ¥600,500 for the second, but cash-strapped twentysomethings might wonder whether on-the-job training is the more affordable choice.
Yasuomi Sawa, a 17-year Kyodo News staff reporter, however, sees an important role for Waseda's J-School.
As a member of the Reporting and Communications Discussion Group, comprising journalists from top Japanese news organizations seeking ways to improve their industry, Sawa has closely followed the development of Waseda's program and considers it a means of injecting needed elements of journalism from around the world into Japan.
Sawa recently spent nine months as a Reuters journalism fellow at Oxford University, where he concluded that British media were far more willing to ruffle feathers — a quality he felt fueled a healthy public dialogue.
"Someone over there said to me, 'What is the role of journalism? It is to provoke an argument.' I thought that was impressive," Sawa said.
Waseda's journalism school, he suggested, should be a laboratory allowing Japan to develop a similarly aggressive brand of journalism for itself.
"I don't think a J-school can do it all, but the opportunities are there," he said.
Scott Stokes was also optimistic about the Waseda J-School's prospects, but cautiously so.
"I think it can make a tremendous contribution. But I also think it can take 50 years to build a respected institution," he said. "It's not something they should set out to accomplish overnight."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080104f1.html
Japan looks to India for a better way to learn
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, including dancing elephants in plumed turbans. The kindergarten students even color maps of India in the green and saffron of its flag.
But Little Angels is situated in this Tokyo suburb, and only one of its 45 students is Indian. Most are Japanese.
Despite an improved economy, Japan is suffering a crisis of confidence these days about its ability to compete with its emerging Asian rivals, China and India. One result has been a growing craze for Indian education.
The Indian boomlet reflects the insecurity of many Japanese in their country's schools, which once turned out students who consistently ranked at the top of international tests. One response has been to look for lessons from India, the country many here see as the world's ascendant education superpower.
Bookstores are filled with titles like "Extreme Indian Arithmetic Drills" and "The Unknown Secrets of the Indians." Newspapers carry reports of Indian children memorizing multiplication tables up to 99 times 99, compared to Japan's relatively lax elementary-school requirement of knowing nine times nine.
And Japan's few Indian international schools are reporting a surge in applications from Japanese families.
The thought of viewing another Asian country as a model in education, or almost anything else, would have been unheard-of here just a few years ago, education specialists and historians say.
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 economy in Asia to achieve Western levels of economic development.
But in recent 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 Japanese government has tried to preserve the country's technological lead and strengthen its military. But the Japanese have been forced to shed their traditional indifference to the region.
Suddenly, Japan is, grudgingly, starting to show a new sense of respect for its neighbors.
"Until now, Japanese saw China and India as backwards and poor," said Yoshinori Murai, a professor of Asian cultures at Sophia University in Tokyo.
"As Japan loses confidence in itself, its attitudes toward Asia are changing. It has started seeing India and China as nations with something to offer."
In education, Japan's respect has grown in seemingly direct proportion to its performance below its Asian rivals on international tests.
Last month, a national cry of alarm greeted the announcement by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that in an international survey of math 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.
While China has stirred more concern here as a political and economic challenger, 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 where Japan has failed to make inroads has sparked more than a tinge of envy here.
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 is work ethic and discipline: learning more at an earlier age, a heavier reliance on rote memorization and cramming, and a stronger focus on the basics, particularly in math and science.
India's more demanding education standards are apparent at Little Angels Kindergarten and are the main source of its popularity.
Its 2-year-old pupils are taught to count to 20, 3-year-olds are introduced to computers, and 5-year-olds learn to multiply, solve math word problems and write one-page essays in English - tasks that most Japanese schools do not teach until at least second grade.
Japanese anxieties about the declining competitiveness of the country echo the angst of another nation two decades ago - when Japan was the economic upstart.
"Japan's interest in learning from Indian education is a lot like America's interest in learning from Japanese education," said Kaoru Okamoto, a professor specializing in education policy at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/01/business/yen.php
But Little Angels is situated in this Tokyo suburb, and only one of its 45 students is Indian. Most are Japanese.
Despite an improved economy, Japan is suffering a crisis of confidence these days about its ability to compete with its emerging Asian rivals, China and India. One result has been a growing craze for Indian education.
The Indian boomlet reflects the insecurity of many Japanese in their country's schools, which once turned out students who consistently ranked at the top of international tests. One response has been to look for lessons from India, the country many here see as the world's ascendant education superpower.
Bookstores are filled with titles like "Extreme Indian Arithmetic Drills" and "The Unknown Secrets of the Indians." Newspapers carry reports of Indian children memorizing multiplication tables up to 99 times 99, compared to Japan's relatively lax elementary-school requirement of knowing nine times nine.
And Japan's few Indian international schools are reporting a surge in applications from Japanese families.
The thought of viewing another Asian country as a model in education, or almost anything else, would have been unheard-of here just a few years ago, education specialists and historians say.
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 economy in Asia to achieve Western levels of economic development.
But in recent 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 Japanese government has tried to preserve the country's technological lead and strengthen its military. But the Japanese have been forced to shed their traditional indifference to the region.
Suddenly, Japan is, grudgingly, starting to show a new sense of respect for its neighbors.
"Until now, Japanese saw China and India as backwards and poor," said Yoshinori Murai, a professor of Asian cultures at Sophia University in Tokyo.
"As Japan loses confidence in itself, its attitudes toward Asia are changing. It has started seeing India and China as nations with something to offer."
In education, Japan's respect has grown in seemingly direct proportion to its performance below its Asian rivals on international tests.
Last month, a national cry of alarm greeted the announcement by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that in an international survey of math 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.
While China has stirred more concern here as a political and economic challenger, 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 where Japan has failed to make inroads has sparked more than a tinge of envy here.
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 is work ethic and discipline: learning more at an earlier age, a heavier reliance on rote memorization and cramming, and a stronger focus on the basics, particularly in math and science.
India's more demanding education standards are apparent at Little Angels Kindergarten and are the main source of its popularity.
Its 2-year-old pupils are taught to count to 20, 3-year-olds are introduced to computers, and 5-year-olds learn to multiply, solve math word problems and write one-page essays in English - tasks that most Japanese schools do not teach until at least second grade.
Japanese anxieties about the declining competitiveness of the country echo the angst of another nation two decades ago - when Japan was the economic upstart.
"Japan's interest in learning from Indian education is a lot like America's interest in learning from Japanese education," said Kaoru Okamoto, a professor specializing in education policy at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/01/business/yen.php
Govt to revise scholarships for foreign students
The Education, Science and Technology Ministry has decided to revise the current system of scholarships for foreign students coming to Japan for periods of less than a year, aiming to expand and improve short-stay programs at universities here, according to government sources.
In Europe and the United States, most students who study abroad do so for only three to 12 months.
The new program will start in the next fiscal and academic year, both of which begin April 1, the sources said.
Quotas for the scholarships are decided by the Japan Student Services Organization, an independent administrative institute, according to the number of international students at each university. But from next academic year the quotas will be decided by the ministry after examining the quality of curriculums for international students at each university.
Currently, the student service organization rubber-stamps recommendations for scholarships from universities. Under the new system, however, administration of the scholarship program for international students on short-stay programs will be transferred from the organization to the ministry, which will conduct more rigorous screening.
The ministry will oblige universities to submit "study programs" that detail curriculums for such students and the universities' preparations for accepting them.
If the ministry approves a university's program, the quota for foreign student scholarships at that institution will remain at current levels. But universities that fail to pass the ministry' screening process will see their quota cut, according to the sources.
Through such advance screening, which comes before screening of the students' scholarship applications, the ministry aims to help universities attract top-quality foreign students, the sources said.
The ministry will exercise its authority in deciding which students get the scholarships, which are worth 80,000 yen a month, aiming to secure the best candidates.
The series of reforms take into consideration the fact that foreign students increasingly opt for short-term programs, rather than long-term programs of two years or more.
According to the student services organization, the number of foreign students on short-stay programs of less than a year as of May 1 was a record 8,368, up 945 from the previous academic year.
On the other hand, the number of students on longer-period programs was 110,130, down 374 from fiscal 2006.
Other evidence suggests that students on short-stay programs tend to return for another round of studies, according to the sources.
The government has decided to expand and improve the scholarship program in the belief that it will be beneficial if top quality students can be persuaded to come to Japan once or more, the sources explained.
This academic year, 1,700 international students were awarded scholarships. The government plans to increase the number to 1,800 in the next academic year, the sources added.
(Dec. 30, 2007)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20071230TDY02302.htm
In Europe and the United States, most students who study abroad do so for only three to 12 months.
The new program will start in the next fiscal and academic year, both of which begin April 1, the sources said.
Quotas for the scholarships are decided by the Japan Student Services Organization, an independent administrative institute, according to the number of international students at each university. But from next academic year the quotas will be decided by the ministry after examining the quality of curriculums for international students at each university.
Currently, the student service organization rubber-stamps recommendations for scholarships from universities. Under the new system, however, administration of the scholarship program for international students on short-stay programs will be transferred from the organization to the ministry, which will conduct more rigorous screening.
The ministry will oblige universities to submit "study programs" that detail curriculums for such students and the universities' preparations for accepting them.
If the ministry approves a university's program, the quota for foreign student scholarships at that institution will remain at current levels. But universities that fail to pass the ministry' screening process will see their quota cut, according to the sources.
Through such advance screening, which comes before screening of the students' scholarship applications, the ministry aims to help universities attract top-quality foreign students, the sources said.
The ministry will exercise its authority in deciding which students get the scholarships, which are worth 80,000 yen a month, aiming to secure the best candidates.
The series of reforms take into consideration the fact that foreign students increasingly opt for short-term programs, rather than long-term programs of two years or more.
According to the student services organization, the number of foreign students on short-stay programs of less than a year as of May 1 was a record 8,368, up 945 from the previous academic year.
On the other hand, the number of students on longer-period programs was 110,130, down 374 from fiscal 2006.
Other evidence suggests that students on short-stay programs tend to return for another round of studies, according to the sources.
The government has decided to expand and improve the scholarship program in the belief that it will be beneficial if top quality students can be persuaded to come to Japan once or more, the sources explained.
This academic year, 1,700 international students were awarded scholarships. The government plans to increase the number to 1,800 in the next academic year, the sources added.
(Dec. 30, 2007)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20071230TDY02302.htm
4 top universities agree on student swaps
Tokyo, Kyoto, Waseda and Keio universities reached a student exchange agreement Tuesday to enable graduate students of one of the universities to study at the other three universities earn credits and diplomas.
The agreement is designed to provide students with more high-level research opportunities in various fields as well as attract able students to improve the universities' international competitiveness.
Graduate school research courses at the universities will hold talks to find common ground with student exchanges set to start next April, and will cover any courses that have managed to reach agreements.
In its second report released in June, the government's Education Rebuilding Council proposed reforms for graduate schools that included limiting the rate of students who attend graduate school at the same institution where they did their undergraduate studies to 30 percent.
Tokyo University President Hiroshi Komiyama, who is a member of the council, said Tuesday that he had proposed the alliance to the three other universities.
"The Education Rebuilding Council has proposed forcing students to attend other universities, but unless students have a desire to go, such programs won't work," he said, stressing the need for universities to take the initiative.
Under the four-university plan, each graduate school will accept students--of graduate as well as doctoral level--from the other universities for six months to a year.
While a doctorate is conferred by the university to which a student belongs, professors at the university where students temporarily study will be allowed to participate in evaluating student theses.
No new tuition charges will be applied for the system.
A similar agreement has been reached between Osaka University and Kansai University.
Some departments of graduate schools at Chiba University, Okayama University, Niigata University, Kanazawa University, Kumamoto University and Nagasaki University also have agreed to exchange credits.
(Dec. 27, 2007)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20071227TDY02310.htm
The agreement is designed to provide students with more high-level research opportunities in various fields as well as attract able students to improve the universities' international competitiveness.
Graduate school research courses at the universities will hold talks to find common ground with student exchanges set to start next April, and will cover any courses that have managed to reach agreements.
In its second report released in June, the government's Education Rebuilding Council proposed reforms for graduate schools that included limiting the rate of students who attend graduate school at the same institution where they did their undergraduate studies to 30 percent.
Tokyo University President Hiroshi Komiyama, who is a member of the council, said Tuesday that he had proposed the alliance to the three other universities.
"The Education Rebuilding Council has proposed forcing students to attend other universities, but unless students have a desire to go, such programs won't work," he said, stressing the need for universities to take the initiative.
Under the four-university plan, each graduate school will accept students--of graduate as well as doctoral level--from the other universities for six months to a year.
While a doctorate is conferred by the university to which a student belongs, professors at the university where students temporarily study will be allowed to participate in evaluating student theses.
No new tuition charges will be applied for the system.
A similar agreement has been reached between Osaka University and Kansai University.
Some departments of graduate schools at Chiba University, Okayama University, Niigata University, Kanazawa University, Kumamoto University and Nagasaki University also have agreed to exchange credits.
(Dec. 27, 2007)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20071227TDY02310.htm
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