Foreign students in Japan can find it hard to secure work after graduation, so some companies are finding business opportunities in helping them hone their job-hunting skills। Pasona, a major employment agency, announced Oct. 14 that it has contracted with Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo to give career counseling to its 40-plus foreign third-year students, most of whom are studying liberal arts and economics.
Pasona will coach students on how to write their resumes, prepare them for job interviews and brief them on the Japanese and global job market, according to Kinuko Yamamoto, senior managing director at Pasona Group Inc।
"It's becoming more common for universities to outsource career-counseling services," Yamamoto said। "Universities are even supporting students long after graduation, so they will remain loyal to their alma mater and potentially come back as donors."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20081028a1.html
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Foreign students to fill the halls
Rie Yoshinaga had a wide range of colleges to choose from।
Globalization: Of the 6,000 students at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Kyushu, nearly half come from abroad, as does the faculty। Classes are taught both in English and Japanese.
Having studied at a high school in Canada for 10 months, Yoshinaga, an 18-year-old native of Oita Prefecture in the northeast of Kyushu region, is perhaps more globally minded than many of her peers। She says she seriously considered applying for Australian universities — one of the closest English-speaking countries to Oita — until she realized there was an international university right in her hometown।
Yoshinaga is now a freshman at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), whose 99,000-sq।-meter hilltop campus commands a panoramic view of Beppu Bay, and where nearly half of the 6,000 students come from abroad, representing 87 countries. Half of the faculty are foreigners, and classes are taught both in English and Japanese. Proficiency in Japanese is not required for international students seeking admission, but once they get in, international and domestic students undergo intensive language training in the two languages, so that when they graduate, they should all have perfect bilingual — or trilingual, depending on their native tongue — capabilities.
"I found this university attractive because, while it is located in Japan, it is international," Yoshinaga said, noting that she had no interest at all in other Japanese universities। "I thought that, if I studied here, I could study Japan and its relations with other countries, including the rest of Asia, whereas if I went to Australia, I would be looking at Asia from an Australian perspective."
In the eight years since its establishment, APU has built a solid reputation for providing a multicultural and multilingual learning environment for all its students — a rare example among Japanese universities, where foreign students are a tiny minority and often segregated into their own programs separate from local students। APU has also breathed new life into a dying onsen (hot-spring) town, by providing a yearly inflow of 6,000 young students who spend their cash locally, and through joint research projects with local governments and industries.
Universities such as APU are becoming increasingly popular in Japan as the population rapidly grays and the pool of college-age students shrinks। To survive, some universities are trying to attract more foreign students. The Japanese government decided in July to make the recruitment of foreign students a "national strategy," committing itself to raising the number of foreign students from the current 118,000 to 300,000 by 2020 in hopes of improving the level of research at universities and attracting talent from overseas. To that end, Japan plans to ease immigration procedures, increase the number of classes taught in English and promote September admissions.
"The environment surrounding higher education is rapidly changing, and competition among universities is becoming stiff worldwide," said Hiroshi Ota, an associate professor at Tokyo's Hitotsubashi University who researches the internationalization of colleges around the world। "It's like what's happening to (Japanese players and) the Major League Baseball. Unless Japanese universities make themselves globally competitive, their researchers will be recruited overseas at high salaries and Japanese universities will be left out in the cold."
Ota cites the emergence of global university rankings in recent years as a major factor fueling competition — and a sense of urgency — among Japanese schools। According to the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings 2008 announced Oct. 10, the University of Tokyo, regarded as Japan's equivalent to Harvard or Yale, was ranked 19th, down two places from last year.
Perhaps more disappointing for Japan's academic community, only three other universities — Kyoto University, Osaka University and the Tokyo Institute of Technology — cracked the top 100, while many colleges in the United States and the United Kingdom filled out the list.
In response, University of Tokyo Vice President Makoto Asashima said the latest THE-QS rankings do not reflect the "rapid changes" the university has implemented in the last few years to make itself more international। In the rankings, Japanese universities scored especially poorly in the ratios of international staff and students to local ones. But in 2005, the university set up an international relations division, whose staff has grown to 31 people. They have been coordinating international academic projects and student/ researcher exchange programs, Asashima said, noting that the university is doling out more scholarships and building new dorms to house 400 foreign students and researchers.
Ota of Hitotsubashi University also says such rankings are not comprehensive in their measurements। For one thing, the THE-QS evaluates the quality of research, not the quality of education or instruction, he says.
Ranking issues aside, Japan still can do a lot more to make its colleges attractive to students of all nationalities, experts say। A key indicator of a college's competitiveness is its ability to get its graduates good jobs. Japan has not been very aggressive in hiring foreign college graduates, though the trend is shifting.
Nearly 10 percent of 3,244 companies surveyed last year by the semigovernmental Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training report that they have hired foreigners who studied at Japanese universities in the last three years, a majority of which said they did so because they wanted to tap "excellent resources regardless of their nationality." Eighty percent of companies with experience hiring international students said they would like to hire such candidates again.
Still, job seekers' needs are surely not being fully met (see sidebar)। According to a June 2007 report compiled by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, while nearly 40 percent of foreigners who have graduated from Japanese universities hope to find employment in Japan, only 25 percent have landed such positions. Pasona's own research of foreign students turning up at the company's job fair shows more and more are interested in finding work in Japan or with Japanese companies, company officials said.
Besides the current dearth of solid opportunities for foreign graduates in Japan, there are questions about schools themselves relying on such students to keep up enrollment। APU president Monte Cassim warns that universities should not look at foreign students merely as a marketing strategy.
"The presidents of many universities I have talked to around the world see internationalization of higher education in the context of finding new student markets," said Cassim, a Sri Lankan native who came to Japan as a student more than 35 years ago। "But if your only goal is to find new markets, why run a university?
"To me, the mission of universities is to find middle-to-long-term solutions to problems in society, and to keep sending out a message about what kind of society we should have। Without such a vision or an aspiration, universities would wander away from the right path."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20081028a1.html
Globalization: Of the 6,000 students at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Kyushu, nearly half come from abroad, as does the faculty। Classes are taught both in English and Japanese.
Having studied at a high school in Canada for 10 months, Yoshinaga, an 18-year-old native of Oita Prefecture in the northeast of Kyushu region, is perhaps more globally minded than many of her peers। She says she seriously considered applying for Australian universities — one of the closest English-speaking countries to Oita — until she realized there was an international university right in her hometown।
Yoshinaga is now a freshman at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), whose 99,000-sq।-meter hilltop campus commands a panoramic view of Beppu Bay, and where nearly half of the 6,000 students come from abroad, representing 87 countries. Half of the faculty are foreigners, and classes are taught both in English and Japanese. Proficiency in Japanese is not required for international students seeking admission, but once they get in, international and domestic students undergo intensive language training in the two languages, so that when they graduate, they should all have perfect bilingual — or trilingual, depending on their native tongue — capabilities.
"I found this university attractive because, while it is located in Japan, it is international," Yoshinaga said, noting that she had no interest at all in other Japanese universities। "I thought that, if I studied here, I could study Japan and its relations with other countries, including the rest of Asia, whereas if I went to Australia, I would be looking at Asia from an Australian perspective."
In the eight years since its establishment, APU has built a solid reputation for providing a multicultural and multilingual learning environment for all its students — a rare example among Japanese universities, where foreign students are a tiny minority and often segregated into their own programs separate from local students। APU has also breathed new life into a dying onsen (hot-spring) town, by providing a yearly inflow of 6,000 young students who spend their cash locally, and through joint research projects with local governments and industries.
Universities such as APU are becoming increasingly popular in Japan as the population rapidly grays and the pool of college-age students shrinks। To survive, some universities are trying to attract more foreign students. The Japanese government decided in July to make the recruitment of foreign students a "national strategy," committing itself to raising the number of foreign students from the current 118,000 to 300,000 by 2020 in hopes of improving the level of research at universities and attracting talent from overseas. To that end, Japan plans to ease immigration procedures, increase the number of classes taught in English and promote September admissions.
"The environment surrounding higher education is rapidly changing, and competition among universities is becoming stiff worldwide," said Hiroshi Ota, an associate professor at Tokyo's Hitotsubashi University who researches the internationalization of colleges around the world। "It's like what's happening to (Japanese players and) the Major League Baseball. Unless Japanese universities make themselves globally competitive, their researchers will be recruited overseas at high salaries and Japanese universities will be left out in the cold."
Ota cites the emergence of global university rankings in recent years as a major factor fueling competition — and a sense of urgency — among Japanese schools। According to the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings 2008 announced Oct. 10, the University of Tokyo, regarded as Japan's equivalent to Harvard or Yale, was ranked 19th, down two places from last year.
Perhaps more disappointing for Japan's academic community, only three other universities — Kyoto University, Osaka University and the Tokyo Institute of Technology — cracked the top 100, while many colleges in the United States and the United Kingdom filled out the list.
In response, University of Tokyo Vice President Makoto Asashima said the latest THE-QS rankings do not reflect the "rapid changes" the university has implemented in the last few years to make itself more international। In the rankings, Japanese universities scored especially poorly in the ratios of international staff and students to local ones. But in 2005, the university set up an international relations division, whose staff has grown to 31 people. They have been coordinating international academic projects and student/ researcher exchange programs, Asashima said, noting that the university is doling out more scholarships and building new dorms to house 400 foreign students and researchers.
Ota of Hitotsubashi University also says such rankings are not comprehensive in their measurements। For one thing, the THE-QS evaluates the quality of research, not the quality of education or instruction, he says.
Ranking issues aside, Japan still can do a lot more to make its colleges attractive to students of all nationalities, experts say। A key indicator of a college's competitiveness is its ability to get its graduates good jobs. Japan has not been very aggressive in hiring foreign college graduates, though the trend is shifting.
Nearly 10 percent of 3,244 companies surveyed last year by the semigovernmental Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training report that they have hired foreigners who studied at Japanese universities in the last three years, a majority of which said they did so because they wanted to tap "excellent resources regardless of their nationality." Eighty percent of companies with experience hiring international students said they would like to hire such candidates again.
Still, job seekers' needs are surely not being fully met (see sidebar)। According to a June 2007 report compiled by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, while nearly 40 percent of foreigners who have graduated from Japanese universities hope to find employment in Japan, only 25 percent have landed such positions. Pasona's own research of foreign students turning up at the company's job fair shows more and more are interested in finding work in Japan or with Japanese companies, company officials said.
Besides the current dearth of solid opportunities for foreign graduates in Japan, there are questions about schools themselves relying on such students to keep up enrollment। APU president Monte Cassim warns that universities should not look at foreign students merely as a marketing strategy.
"The presidents of many universities I have talked to around the world see internationalization of higher education in the context of finding new student markets," said Cassim, a Sri Lankan native who came to Japan as a student more than 35 years ago। "But if your only goal is to find new markets, why run a university?
"To me, the mission of universities is to find middle-to-long-term solutions to problems in society, and to keep sending out a message about what kind of society we should have। Without such a vision or an aspiration, universities would wander away from the right path."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20081028a1.html
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Japanese Language Proficiency Test
OCTOBER 28, 2008 09:12
Universities around the world are in intense competition to attract foreign students, with a soaring number of students going abroad to study in this global era। The United States is the most favored destination. Though many want to return home after finishing their studies, some remain in America to contribute to its economic and scientific development. Drawing the world`s best and brightest students plays a key role in advancing a country. In the past, the United States attracted 60 percent of overseas students, but now faces a decline in university enrollment as higher education undergoes rapid globalization.
Attracting foreign students is more than recruiting talented scholars because it generates a profitable industry। When attracting overseas students, their spending on tuition fees, living expenses and visits by their families benefits the host country’s service revenues. Universities can enhance their image while earning profits from tuition. For this reason, a number of governments are keen to treat higher education as an industry. A case in point is Goethe House, or Campus France.
Japan is far ahead of other Asian countries in attracting foreign students। In 1983, then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone unveiled a plan on admitting 100,000 foreign students. Twenty five years later, that number has risen to 120,000. One problem, however, is that Chinese students accounted for 74 percent and Korean students 14 percent of Japan’s foreign students. The language barrier made it difficult to evaluate a student’s scholastic ability. To resolve the problem, Japan adopted two languages for use in administering the Japanese Language Proficiency Test for those who want to attend university in Japan.
In the face of declining student enrollment and growing financial difficulty, Korean universities is trying to attract foreign students। The number of overseas students reached 63,952 in April this year. The government announced the “Study Korea” project aimed to attract 100,000 foreign students by 2010. Korea has a similar problem with Japan in that most foreign students are from China attracted mainly by relatively cheap tuition. The Lee administration should pay attention to the Japanese government’s diversification of its language test to attract more foreign students.
Editorial Writer Chung Sung-hee, (।com">shchung@donga।com)
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=100000&biid=2008102877588
Universities around the world are in intense competition to attract foreign students, with a soaring number of students going abroad to study in this global era। The United States is the most favored destination. Though many want to return home after finishing their studies, some remain in America to contribute to its economic and scientific development. Drawing the world`s best and brightest students plays a key role in advancing a country. In the past, the United States attracted 60 percent of overseas students, but now faces a decline in university enrollment as higher education undergoes rapid globalization.
Attracting foreign students is more than recruiting talented scholars because it generates a profitable industry। When attracting overseas students, their spending on tuition fees, living expenses and visits by their families benefits the host country’s service revenues. Universities can enhance their image while earning profits from tuition. For this reason, a number of governments are keen to treat higher education as an industry. A case in point is Goethe House, or Campus France.
Japan is far ahead of other Asian countries in attracting foreign students। In 1983, then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone unveiled a plan on admitting 100,000 foreign students. Twenty five years later, that number has risen to 120,000. One problem, however, is that Chinese students accounted for 74 percent and Korean students 14 percent of Japan’s foreign students. The language barrier made it difficult to evaluate a student’s scholastic ability. To resolve the problem, Japan adopted two languages for use in administering the Japanese Language Proficiency Test for those who want to attend university in Japan.
In the face of declining student enrollment and growing financial difficulty, Korean universities is trying to attract foreign students। The number of overseas students reached 63,952 in April this year. The government announced the “Study Korea” project aimed to attract 100,000 foreign students by 2010. Korea has a similar problem with Japan in that most foreign students are from China attracted mainly by relatively cheap tuition. The Lee administration should pay attention to the Japanese government’s diversification of its language test to attract more foreign students.
Editorial Writer Chung Sung-hee, (।com">shchung@donga।com)
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?bicode=100000&biid=2008102877588
Monday, October 27, 2008
JAPANESE SCHOOLS MUST ATTRACT FOREIGN TALENT
As the world's best and brightest minds become a global commodity, U.S. and European universities are vying for the top students from abroad.
Universities in the United States are the most popular destination for elite students from China and other Asian countries. For Japanese universities to catch up with their U.S. and European counterparts, a drastic reexamination of policies on foreign students is necessary.
The government has outlined measures to increase the number of students from abroad from the current 120,000 to 300,000 a year by 2020.
If undergraduate and graduate schools are increasingly globalized and, consequently, research at those institutions is further invigorated, it will help advance the nation's science and technology as well as make Japanese industry more competitive in the global marketplace.
Among Western countries, the United States accommodates about 580,000 students from overseas, while France and Germany, both non-English speaking nations, accept about 250,000. The figures far surpass Japan's 120,000 foreign students.
The number of students accepted from abroad can be judged as a barometer of the attractiveness of universities of each country.
Under the measures to increase the number of students from overseas to 300,000, the government will select 30 universities as the hub of globalization of the nation's higher education system. These schools will award diplomas for courses with classes basically taught only in English and heighten educational standards by hiring more non-Japanese faculty.
Last year, the government began an educational program under the government-initiated Career Development Program for Foreign Students from Asia.
Under the program, universities and participating companies offer specialized educational classes that meet corporate needs, including business Japanese classes and practical training at companies, and students who take the classes are generally hired by the participating companies.
We believe further strengthening such industry-university cooperation also is necessary.
Another important part of the government's measures include promotion of Japanese language education overseas and centralization of international contacts for those who wish to study in Japan.
Deeper discussions should be held immediately to bring such ideas to fruition।
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93KL6O80&show_article=1
Universities in the United States are the most popular destination for elite students from China and other Asian countries. For Japanese universities to catch up with their U.S. and European counterparts, a drastic reexamination of policies on foreign students is necessary.
The government has outlined measures to increase the number of students from abroad from the current 120,000 to 300,000 a year by 2020.
If undergraduate and graduate schools are increasingly globalized and, consequently, research at those institutions is further invigorated, it will help advance the nation's science and technology as well as make Japanese industry more competitive in the global marketplace.
Among Western countries, the United States accommodates about 580,000 students from overseas, while France and Germany, both non-English speaking nations, accept about 250,000. The figures far surpass Japan's 120,000 foreign students.
The number of students accepted from abroad can be judged as a barometer of the attractiveness of universities of each country.
Under the measures to increase the number of students from overseas to 300,000, the government will select 30 universities as the hub of globalization of the nation's higher education system. These schools will award diplomas for courses with classes basically taught only in English and heighten educational standards by hiring more non-Japanese faculty.
Last year, the government began an educational program under the government-initiated Career Development Program for Foreign Students from Asia.
Under the program, universities and participating companies offer specialized educational classes that meet corporate needs, including business Japanese classes and practical training at companies, and students who take the classes are generally hired by the participating companies.
We believe further strengthening such industry-university cooperation also is necessary.
Another important part of the government's measures include promotion of Japanese language education overseas and centralization of international contacts for those who wish to study in Japan.
Deeper discussions should be held immediately to bring such ideas to fruition।
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93KL6O80&show_article=1
Pachinko academy draws in students
A stroll around Shinjuku Station will reveal plenty of pachinko parlors emitting noises of rapidly firing steel balls to the sound of pounding dance tunes। Such clamor is music to the ears of Ei Yoshida, president of G&E Business School — a pachinko academy to learn all there is to know about what is basically an upright pinball game.
“Our students either want to change their career,” says Yoshida from his third floor office on Shinjuku-dori Avenue, “or they are already working in pachinko and need to learn more।”
Established in 2006, G&E Business School annually instructs 200 students, aged between 19 and 25, to work in this massive industry। Although it has recently been facing a downturn, the industry still remains highly dynamic.
Classes include such subjects as programming of the machines, selecting background animations, marketing and management. Live machines in rows make the classroom look like a real parlor.
“When the students are finished here,” Yoshida says, “they go on to work at companies that produce the machines or in pachinko advertising।” The G&E brochure shows photos of graduates who have moved on to such heavyweight machine manufacturers such as Sankyo and Sammy. The president who, two decades ago, worked as a low-level employee at a parlor, sees pachinko as a business that is very unique to Japan’s landscape.
“As long as the site is 50 meters away from a school or hospital,” he says, “a parlor can be established anywhere।”
To play is easy। Players turn the machine’s dial to launch dozens of balls upward. The silver spheres then tumble downward through mazes of nails and into certain slots or gates that can yield many more balls. The machines are set at one of six cycles, each of which generates a different rate of payout.
Patrons cannot convert the balls to currency inside the parlor। (Only electronics, toiletries, and other small items are available for exchange.) Obtaining cash is done via a middleman at a satellite office away from the parlor. This extra step, by law, makes this form of gambling — a word Yoshida does not prefer — technically legal.
The origins of pachinko probably date back to a horizontal board game imported by an Osaka company from the United States in 1924। In 1948, the first parlor opened in Nagoya following the enactment of the Entertainment Establishments Control Law, under which the game was classified as a form of amusement rather than gambling.
The industry employs 300,000 people at its 14,000 parlors and in 2006, generated 25 trillion yen in turnover। This figure eclipses those of the lotteries, boat racing, horse racing, and other types of gambling combined. Maruhan, Japan’s largest hall operator which also dabbles in bowling and food services, collected revenues of 1.8 trillion yen for the term ending March 31, 2008. Last year, Forbes included two pachinko company presidents, Kunio Busujima of Sankyo and Han Chang-Woo of Maruhan, in their list of “Japan’s 40 Richest.”
While the industry is a sizeable force, overall revenue is down from its peak of 30 trillion yen in 1995। Yoshida, however, does not foresee a problem. “Before, without making much effort,” he says, “a parlor could make money. But now, a person not making any effort is losing business. It’s the basics of capitalism. There is a lot of competition.”
Along these lines, the industry is attempting to rid itself of the seedy, gang-ridden reputation it has acquired over the years and woo women into its halls by providing a clean and pleasant environment। Brand-name goods are increasingly being offered as prizes, and the romantic Korean drama “Fuyu no Sonata,” a large hit with Japanese women, has had its characters appear as background images on numerous machines by maker Kyoraku in recent months.
Yoshida hopes to soon expand his school to include branches in the cities of Nagoya and Osaka। “When I started in pachinko,” he says, “people thought I was entering the world of gangsters. But this is now a legitimate business.”
http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/pachinko-academy-draws-in-students
“Our students either want to change their career,” says Yoshida from his third floor office on Shinjuku-dori Avenue, “or they are already working in pachinko and need to learn more।”
Established in 2006, G&E Business School annually instructs 200 students, aged between 19 and 25, to work in this massive industry। Although it has recently been facing a downturn, the industry still remains highly dynamic.
Classes include such subjects as programming of the machines, selecting background animations, marketing and management. Live machines in rows make the classroom look like a real parlor.
“When the students are finished here,” Yoshida says, “they go on to work at companies that produce the machines or in pachinko advertising।” The G&E brochure shows photos of graduates who have moved on to such heavyweight machine manufacturers such as Sankyo and Sammy. The president who, two decades ago, worked as a low-level employee at a parlor, sees pachinko as a business that is very unique to Japan’s landscape.
“As long as the site is 50 meters away from a school or hospital,” he says, “a parlor can be established anywhere।”
To play is easy। Players turn the machine’s dial to launch dozens of balls upward. The silver spheres then tumble downward through mazes of nails and into certain slots or gates that can yield many more balls. The machines are set at one of six cycles, each of which generates a different rate of payout.
Patrons cannot convert the balls to currency inside the parlor। (Only electronics, toiletries, and other small items are available for exchange.) Obtaining cash is done via a middleman at a satellite office away from the parlor. This extra step, by law, makes this form of gambling — a word Yoshida does not prefer — technically legal.
The origins of pachinko probably date back to a horizontal board game imported by an Osaka company from the United States in 1924। In 1948, the first parlor opened in Nagoya following the enactment of the Entertainment Establishments Control Law, under which the game was classified as a form of amusement rather than gambling.
The industry employs 300,000 people at its 14,000 parlors and in 2006, generated 25 trillion yen in turnover। This figure eclipses those of the lotteries, boat racing, horse racing, and other types of gambling combined. Maruhan, Japan’s largest hall operator which also dabbles in bowling and food services, collected revenues of 1.8 trillion yen for the term ending March 31, 2008. Last year, Forbes included two pachinko company presidents, Kunio Busujima of Sankyo and Han Chang-Woo of Maruhan, in their list of “Japan’s 40 Richest.”
While the industry is a sizeable force, overall revenue is down from its peak of 30 trillion yen in 1995। Yoshida, however, does not foresee a problem. “Before, without making much effort,” he says, “a parlor could make money. But now, a person not making any effort is losing business. It’s the basics of capitalism. There is a lot of competition.”
Along these lines, the industry is attempting to rid itself of the seedy, gang-ridden reputation it has acquired over the years and woo women into its halls by providing a clean and pleasant environment। Brand-name goods are increasingly being offered as prizes, and the romantic Korean drama “Fuyu no Sonata,” a large hit with Japanese women, has had its characters appear as background images on numerous machines by maker Kyoraku in recent months.
Yoshida hopes to soon expand his school to include branches in the cities of Nagoya and Osaka। “When I started in pachinko,” he says, “people thought I was entering the world of gangsters. But this is now a legitimate business.”
http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/pachinko-academy-draws-in-students
Chinese, Korean to be added for intl students' test
Chinese and Korean languages will be added to the current examination to evaluate the academic abilities of foreign students who would like to study in Japan, the Education, Science and Technology Ministry said।
The plan, which the ministry agreed on Saturday, aims to promote the early realization of the government's effort to increase the number of international students in Japan to 300,000। It takes into account the fact that Chinese and South Korean students account for nearly 90 percent of those taking the Examination for Japanese University Admission for International Students (EJU). The ministry hopes to further increase the number of students from both countries.
Although the examination has been available only in Japanese and English, the overwhelming majority of students taking the test are Chinese and South Korean। Of 19,206 students who took the examination in June 2008, Chinese students accounted for 74 percent and South Korean students 14 percent.
The ministry also decided to adopt the two languages to evaluate the students' basic scholastic abilities beyond the language barrier, according to the sources.
(Oct। 27, 2008)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20081027TDY03302.htm
The plan, which the ministry agreed on Saturday, aims to promote the early realization of the government's effort to increase the number of international students in Japan to 300,000। It takes into account the fact that Chinese and South Korean students account for nearly 90 percent of those taking the Examination for Japanese University Admission for International Students (EJU). The ministry hopes to further increase the number of students from both countries.
Although the examination has been available only in Japanese and English, the overwhelming majority of students taking the test are Chinese and South Korean। Of 19,206 students who took the examination in June 2008, Chinese students accounted for 74 percent and South Korean students 14 percent.
The ministry also decided to adopt the two languages to evaluate the students' basic scholastic abilities beyond the language barrier, according to the sources.
(Oct। 27, 2008)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20081027TDY03302.htm
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