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.

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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