300 students including Chinese and Japanese expected to join program every year
Major universities in South Korea, China and Japan will launch a joint degree program next year as part of efforts to expand academic exchanges, the Education Ministry said Sunday.
The Education Ministry and the Korean Council for University Education announced 10 South Korean colleges and universities chosen to partner with Chinese and Japanese universities under the Campus Asia program.
The program is an Asian version of the Erasmus Mundus, which enables students to earn joint degrees from at least three different higher education institutions in EU member countries.
The 10 Korean universities include Seoul National University, Korea University, Sungkyunkwan University, POSTECH, KAIST, Dongseo University and Pusan National University.
The program is a follow-up to an agreement made by the leaders of Korea, China and Japan to increase exchanges among their universities at the end of their summit meeting on Jeju Island last May.
Since then, the ministry has formed 10 consortia consisting of three partner universities, one from each country. It expects to complete the administrative process by the end of the year before accepting students from next year, according to ministry officials.
SNU, Peking University and University of Tokyo have formed a consortium on the master’s degree level in the academic fields of public policy and international relations. They are working on ways to give students dual or multiple degrees if they complete a one-year course at each school.
In the consortium of Dongseo University in Korea, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in China and Ritsumeikan University in Japan, students will be able to take classes at the three different schools for a semester and seize internship opportunities before graduation.
A combined 300 students in Korea, China and Japan, with 100 students from each country, are expected to participate in the Campus Asia program every year.
The Education Ministry and the Korean Council for University Education will provide the chosen Korean universities with 124 million won ($112,000) in student exchanges expenses and about 100 million won in program development costs per consortium from next year to 2015.
Korean students participating in the Campus Asia program will get 800,000 won ($725) roundtrip flight tickets and a minimum in monthly living expenses of 800,000 to 900,000 for a one-year stay. They will have to pay tuition to their Korean schools alone.
With the project development fund, schools will be able to hire teaching assistants, draw up curricula or operate language programs, according to the ministry.
Eight Chinese universities participating in the program include Peking, Tsinghua, Fudan and Jilin universities. University of Tokyo, Kobe University, Ritsumeikan University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Nagoya University are among the 10 Japanese institutions taking part.
http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20111030000213
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Japan is moving to modernise its universities and confront globalisation head on
JAPAN's universities - assailed by claims that have failed to cope with globalisation - are moving to boost their international competitiveness and appeal.
The university sector here shrugs off industry complaints that it is not generating graduates who can be deployed outside Japan.
But nevertheless big changes are happening as campuses try to boost foreign student numbers and offer more courses in English.
Although Japan boasts some world-class universities, its top performer, the University of Tokyo, has a rank of just 30 on the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
That’s arguably too low for a country that is the world’s third-largest economy and a centre of innovation responsible for more patents per capita than any other nation.
In an interview with the HES in Tokyo, the vice president of Waseda University, Katsuichi Uchida, said criticisms from industry were not new and, to an extent, were unjustified.
“Of course we understand the importance of collaboration between universities and industries, but their way of thinking, I am sorry to say, is too narrow,’’ he said.
Professor Uchida said producing globally competitive graduates was important not just to feed the hungry maws of Japan’s trading companies, but to tackle major problems including global warming and food shortages.
Japan’s tertiary education system sees students selected by universities via entrance exams and then streamed into various undergraduate courses that are heavy on theory and collaborative practical work, but light on those activities focused on developing critical faculties.
The result, according to the system’s critics, is graduates suited to niche roles in Japanese workplaces instead of linguistically and culturally competent generalists that can expand Japan’s interests abroad in the modern world.
Although Waseda, a private university, trails Japan’s big public universities on world rankings, both it and Tokyo’s Sophia University are at the forefront of the movement towards internationalisation.
Mr Uchida said that just as in Japanese society, learning in Japan has been focused on collaboratively aiming for consensus or harmony through discussion.
“This kind of system has been unique to Japan,’’ he said. “For the last 30, 40, 50 years this kind of education system has been one key factor behind the success of Japanese corporations because, as you know, Japanese corporations emphasise the importance of a group orientated management style.’’
But times have changed for Japan as the nation realises it cannot depend on domestic demand for economic survival and must once again thrust itself out into the world.
Japanese corporations are embarking on a buying spree acquiring foreign subsidiaries throughout Asia and Australia and turning to universities to provide the staff to help run them.
While the companies complain they can’t find enough of the kind of graduates they need, the situation is better than it used to be.
The government’s Global 30 program, launched in 2008, is aimed at attracting 300,000 foreign students to Japan by encouraging 13 universities – including Tokyo, Kyoto and Waseda and Sophia – to become centres for international education.
Professor Uchida says Waseda launched its school of international studies in 2004 in anticipation of the direction things were heading and now has six faculties teaching in English.
“In that school we take 600 students – two thirds are Japanese, one third are foreign. All courses are taught in English and all these students are required to spend a year in another country to study,’’ he said.
“Nowadays this is a kind of a model for the development of undergraduate education programs at Waseda.”
He said the university was turning its focus to Chinese students and students from other parts of Asia where Japanese companies are increasingly basing many of their production facilities to capitalise on cheaper labour.
Waseda now has 4000 foreign students of which 40 per cent are Chinese and 20 per cent South Korean.
“When you are on Waseda’s campus you will hear students speaking in Chinese, Korean, English and Japanese. Through this kind of environment, Japanese students now recognise diverse cultural backgrounds and languages,’’ he said.
“The purpose for us in receiving international students is not just to educate those students, but also Japanese students.”
Tokyo University has just flagged starting a September entrance system – to be aligned with the US academic calendar - and its president has emphasised the importance of globalisation of universities in recent speeches.
Professor Uchida said the attitude was changing across the sector with universities recruiting foreign students and changing to a more global curriculum and internationally recognised teaching methods.
“We have been the forerunner, but these days the other universities recognise the importance of globalisation,” he said.
“We now understand the importance of liberal arts education to nurture critical ways of thinking. We are now developing small classes and during classes we emphasise the importance of discussion between students and faculty members.
The president of Sophia University – a Jesuit established institution that has been at the forefront of internationalised education in Japan - said industry’s complaints about the sector were not necessarily valid.
President Tadashi Takizawa said universities had to teach students broad concepts and ethics as well as their core skills, and if employers wanted strictly vocationally orientated skills they could look for staff trained in technical or language colleges.
But he also acknowledged the sector could have done more in the past to forge linkages with industry.
He said Sophia, which is a small university by Japanese standards, had more than 700 foreign students and was increasingly turning its eyes from West to East with a view to attracting students from other parts of Asia.
Foreign student numbers in Japan have almost tripled since the year 2000, with the current total standing about almost 142,000. However, that’s still small even when compared to Australia, which has more than 200,000 foreign students enrolled in higher education courses each year.
Japanese inventor and academic Shuji Nakamura – the inventor of the blue laser that integral to DVD, CD and Blu-ray players – said Japanese universities still had a huge leap to make to catch up to their US counterparts.
Professor Nakamura, who abandoned Japan in disgust over the secrecy and hierarchical structure of the company where he did his research, said Japan’s education system was geared to simply preparing pupils for the university entrance exam and little else.
The University of California professor said Japan’s students needed to be taught how to conduct presentations, construct and write papers, particularly in English, and universities needed to allow students to challenge and debate their teachers.
“In American universities, there is no strict hierarchical relationship. At our meetings we can’t even see who is the professor and who is the student,’’ he said.
“Whereas at a Japanese university, the professor is the emperor and the rest are like slaves. The atmosphere is so different.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/rise-of-the-dragon/japan-is-moving-to-modernise-its-universities-and-confront-globalisation-head-on/story-fnama19w-1226175474637
The university sector here shrugs off industry complaints that it is not generating graduates who can be deployed outside Japan.
But nevertheless big changes are happening as campuses try to boost foreign student numbers and offer more courses in English.
Although Japan boasts some world-class universities, its top performer, the University of Tokyo, has a rank of just 30 on the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
That’s arguably too low for a country that is the world’s third-largest economy and a centre of innovation responsible for more patents per capita than any other nation.
In an interview with the HES in Tokyo, the vice president of Waseda University, Katsuichi Uchida, said criticisms from industry were not new and, to an extent, were unjustified.
“Of course we understand the importance of collaboration between universities and industries, but their way of thinking, I am sorry to say, is too narrow,’’ he said.
Professor Uchida said producing globally competitive graduates was important not just to feed the hungry maws of Japan’s trading companies, but to tackle major problems including global warming and food shortages.
Japan’s tertiary education system sees students selected by universities via entrance exams and then streamed into various undergraduate courses that are heavy on theory and collaborative practical work, but light on those activities focused on developing critical faculties.
The result, according to the system’s critics, is graduates suited to niche roles in Japanese workplaces instead of linguistically and culturally competent generalists that can expand Japan’s interests abroad in the modern world.
Although Waseda, a private university, trails Japan’s big public universities on world rankings, both it and Tokyo’s Sophia University are at the forefront of the movement towards internationalisation.
Mr Uchida said that just as in Japanese society, learning in Japan has been focused on collaboratively aiming for consensus or harmony through discussion.
“This kind of system has been unique to Japan,’’ he said. “For the last 30, 40, 50 years this kind of education system has been one key factor behind the success of Japanese corporations because, as you know, Japanese corporations emphasise the importance of a group orientated management style.’’
But times have changed for Japan as the nation realises it cannot depend on domestic demand for economic survival and must once again thrust itself out into the world.
Japanese corporations are embarking on a buying spree acquiring foreign subsidiaries throughout Asia and Australia and turning to universities to provide the staff to help run them.
While the companies complain they can’t find enough of the kind of graduates they need, the situation is better than it used to be.
The government’s Global 30 program, launched in 2008, is aimed at attracting 300,000 foreign students to Japan by encouraging 13 universities – including Tokyo, Kyoto and Waseda and Sophia – to become centres for international education.
Professor Uchida says Waseda launched its school of international studies in 2004 in anticipation of the direction things were heading and now has six faculties teaching in English.
“In that school we take 600 students – two thirds are Japanese, one third are foreign. All courses are taught in English and all these students are required to spend a year in another country to study,’’ he said.
“Nowadays this is a kind of a model for the development of undergraduate education programs at Waseda.”
He said the university was turning its focus to Chinese students and students from other parts of Asia where Japanese companies are increasingly basing many of their production facilities to capitalise on cheaper labour.
Waseda now has 4000 foreign students of which 40 per cent are Chinese and 20 per cent South Korean.
“When you are on Waseda’s campus you will hear students speaking in Chinese, Korean, English and Japanese. Through this kind of environment, Japanese students now recognise diverse cultural backgrounds and languages,’’ he said.
“The purpose for us in receiving international students is not just to educate those students, but also Japanese students.”
Tokyo University has just flagged starting a September entrance system – to be aligned with the US academic calendar - and its president has emphasised the importance of globalisation of universities in recent speeches.
Professor Uchida said the attitude was changing across the sector with universities recruiting foreign students and changing to a more global curriculum and internationally recognised teaching methods.
“We have been the forerunner, but these days the other universities recognise the importance of globalisation,” he said.
“We now understand the importance of liberal arts education to nurture critical ways of thinking. We are now developing small classes and during classes we emphasise the importance of discussion between students and faculty members.
The president of Sophia University – a Jesuit established institution that has been at the forefront of internationalised education in Japan - said industry’s complaints about the sector were not necessarily valid.
President Tadashi Takizawa said universities had to teach students broad concepts and ethics as well as their core skills, and if employers wanted strictly vocationally orientated skills they could look for staff trained in technical or language colleges.
But he also acknowledged the sector could have done more in the past to forge linkages with industry.
He said Sophia, which is a small university by Japanese standards, had more than 700 foreign students and was increasingly turning its eyes from West to East with a view to attracting students from other parts of Asia.
Foreign student numbers in Japan have almost tripled since the year 2000, with the current total standing about almost 142,000. However, that’s still small even when compared to Australia, which has more than 200,000 foreign students enrolled in higher education courses each year.
Japanese inventor and academic Shuji Nakamura – the inventor of the blue laser that integral to DVD, CD and Blu-ray players – said Japanese universities still had a huge leap to make to catch up to their US counterparts.
Professor Nakamura, who abandoned Japan in disgust over the secrecy and hierarchical structure of the company where he did his research, said Japan’s education system was geared to simply preparing pupils for the university entrance exam and little else.
The University of California professor said Japan’s students needed to be taught how to conduct presentations, construct and write papers, particularly in English, and universities needed to allow students to challenge and debate their teachers.
“In American universities, there is no strict hierarchical relationship. At our meetings we can’t even see who is the professor and who is the student,’’ he said.
“Whereas at a Japanese university, the professor is the emperor and the rest are like slaves. The atmosphere is so different.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/rise-of-the-dragon/japan-is-moving-to-modernise-its-universities-and-confront-globalisation-head-on/story-fnama19w-1226175474637
Friday, October 14, 2011
Free trip aims to reassure intl students
The education ministry plans to invite 150 foreign university students who are interested in studying in Japan to join free "trial study trips" to this nation, it was learned Wednesday.
The about-two-week trips, which will include visits to areas hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake, were conceived as a response to the trend of foreign students canceling plans to study in Japan since the March 11 disaster.
The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry plans to invite 150 students from resource-rich countries--including some in the Middle East--as well as the United States and European countries, where interest in nuclear power issues is high, according to ministry sources.
According to the ministry, of 5,600 foreign students who were scheduled to study in Japan this year, 600 canceled their plans.
The ministry has allocated 100 million yen to the program in a third fiscal 2011 supplementary budget, which is to be submitted to the next extraordinary Diet session. After the budget is passed by the Diet, the program will be implemented.
The program will enable the foreign students to converse with local government officials involved in reconstruction efforts in disaster-hit areas, shop owners, and members and officials of fishery cooperatives and nonprofit organizations. The program will also likely include exchanges with Japanese university students, the sources said.
The ministry hopes the foreign students who take part in the program will see that progress is being made toward bringing the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant under control, and that studying in Japan thus involves no safety concerns, the sources explained.
The ministry expects that after the students return home, they will provide others in their countries with accurate information by reporting on what they saw and heard in Japan, the sources said.
(Oct. 13, 2011)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T111012006453.htm
The about-two-week trips, which will include visits to areas hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake, were conceived as a response to the trend of foreign students canceling plans to study in Japan since the March 11 disaster.
The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry plans to invite 150 students from resource-rich countries--including some in the Middle East--as well as the United States and European countries, where interest in nuclear power issues is high, according to ministry sources.
According to the ministry, of 5,600 foreign students who were scheduled to study in Japan this year, 600 canceled their plans.
The ministry has allocated 100 million yen to the program in a third fiscal 2011 supplementary budget, which is to be submitted to the next extraordinary Diet session. After the budget is passed by the Diet, the program will be implemented.
The program will enable the foreign students to converse with local government officials involved in reconstruction efforts in disaster-hit areas, shop owners, and members and officials of fishery cooperatives and nonprofit organizations. The program will also likely include exchanges with Japanese university students, the sources said.
The ministry hopes the foreign students who take part in the program will see that progress is being made toward bringing the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant under control, and that studying in Japan thus involves no safety concerns, the sources explained.
The ministry expects that after the students return home, they will provide others in their countries with accurate information by reporting on what they saw and heard in Japan, the sources said.
(Oct. 13, 2011)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T111012006453.htm
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Universities sign up Japan's new wave of leaders
THE University of Queensland is poised to capitalise on Japanese companies' sudden expansion into foreign markets by boosting its numbers of students from the country.
Together with the University of NSW, UQ's Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education has signed a memorandum of understanding with leading Japanese personnel company DISCO to train Japan's next generation of corporate leaders.
With a shrinking domestic market surrounded by buoyant emerging economies Japanese firms have belatedly realised their best prospects lie abroad.
But expansion is being hamstrung by the fact few of their employees are globally and culturally savvy or fluent enough in English to do business in the West or other parts of Asia.
David Nelson, deputy director of ICTE-UQ, said the institute was offering short courses that went beyond just English and included cultural awareness, change management and doing business in Asia.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
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"Japan has a very high graduate unemployment rate at the moment of 30 per cent. Part of that is economy-related, but it's also quite clear they have a skills gap," he said.
"They are basically being forced to globalise because their domestic market is contracting. At this stage they just don't have the people to do it, but there seems to be a new move to send graduates offshore."
Although up to 15 per cent of ICTE-UQ's foreign students come from Japan, numbers of Japanese students in Australia as a whole have been dropping with China, India, South Korea and the Middle East and Latin America making up the shortfall.
Tom Okumura, DISCO's deputy director, global education and training, hopes to convince students and graduate employers that Australia is the best place for Japanese students to study business-related courses in English.
"We are explaining to them that Australia is not just a sightseeing destination any more," he said.
"The first big challenge is to brand Australia and to get an understanding of Australia as an ideal destination to study, far better than the US or the UK. Australia has much stronger connection with Asia."
Mr Okumura said along with quality courses, Australia also offered students the chance to network and familiarise themselves with other students, most of whom were from other countries in Asia.
His biggest task was persuading conservative human resource managers to send students to UQ or the University of NSW -- both of which ranked in the global top 50 universities (on QS World University Rankings) -- rather than British or US universities.
Queensland's Tokyo-based trade commissioner Tak Adachi, who helped broker the MoU, said the state had kept up its strong ties with Japan and was a logical destination for students.
"Both ICTE-UQ and DISCO have recognised the advantages of studying in Queensland and as Japan faces greater pressure to compete in the global economy, relationships like this will be vital."
Former ICTE-UQ student Naoya Egawa did a professional year program at the university after doing his undergraduate degree at Griffith University and wound up with a job working in UQ's finance department.
Mr Egawa, who is from Nagoya, said studying in Australia -- as opposed to the US or Europe -- gave students a more Asian international experience and he would recommend it to fellow Japanese.
"A lot of people in Japan are close-minded, they don't think very globally. It's very important for young people to get out and see the world," he said. "I'd say come over for at least a few months because if you just stay in Japan it's going to be very difficult."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/unis-sign-up-japans-new-wave-of-leaders/story-e6frgcjx-1226158334451
Together with the University of NSW, UQ's Institute of Continuing and TESOL Education has signed a memorandum of understanding with leading Japanese personnel company DISCO to train Japan's next generation of corporate leaders.
With a shrinking domestic market surrounded by buoyant emerging economies Japanese firms have belatedly realised their best prospects lie abroad.
But expansion is being hamstrung by the fact few of their employees are globally and culturally savvy or fluent enough in English to do business in the West or other parts of Asia.
David Nelson, deputy director of ICTE-UQ, said the institute was offering short courses that went beyond just English and included cultural awareness, change management and doing business in Asia.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
"Japan has a very high graduate unemployment rate at the moment of 30 per cent. Part of that is economy-related, but it's also quite clear they have a skills gap," he said.
"They are basically being forced to globalise because their domestic market is contracting. At this stage they just don't have the people to do it, but there seems to be a new move to send graduates offshore."
Although up to 15 per cent of ICTE-UQ's foreign students come from Japan, numbers of Japanese students in Australia as a whole have been dropping with China, India, South Korea and the Middle East and Latin America making up the shortfall.
Tom Okumura, DISCO's deputy director, global education and training, hopes to convince students and graduate employers that Australia is the best place for Japanese students to study business-related courses in English.
"We are explaining to them that Australia is not just a sightseeing destination any more," he said.
"The first big challenge is to brand Australia and to get an understanding of Australia as an ideal destination to study, far better than the US or the UK. Australia has much stronger connection with Asia."
Mr Okumura said along with quality courses, Australia also offered students the chance to network and familiarise themselves with other students, most of whom were from other countries in Asia.
His biggest task was persuading conservative human resource managers to send students to UQ or the University of NSW -- both of which ranked in the global top 50 universities (on QS World University Rankings) -- rather than British or US universities.
Queensland's Tokyo-based trade commissioner Tak Adachi, who helped broker the MoU, said the state had kept up its strong ties with Japan and was a logical destination for students.
"Both ICTE-UQ and DISCO have recognised the advantages of studying in Queensland and as Japan faces greater pressure to compete in the global economy, relationships like this will be vital."
Former ICTE-UQ student Naoya Egawa did a professional year program at the university after doing his undergraduate degree at Griffith University and wound up with a job working in UQ's finance department.
Mr Egawa, who is from Nagoya, said studying in Australia -- as opposed to the US or Europe -- gave students a more Asian international experience and he would recommend it to fellow Japanese.
"A lot of people in Japan are close-minded, they don't think very globally. It's very important for young people to get out and see the world," he said. "I'd say come over for at least a few months because if you just stay in Japan it's going to be very difficult."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/unis-sign-up-japans-new-wave-of-leaders/story-e6frgcjx-1226158334451
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