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
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment