Sunday, December 08, 2013

Study app business brisk, prepping youths from all walks for college

The smartphone application business targeting students preparing for college entrance exams is buoyant amid a steady increase in smartphone users among high school students.
Naoki Miyauchi, an 18-year-old high school senior in Okayama, attends one of Japan’s major preparatory schools and is studying for more than five hours a day so he can pass the competitive exam for the University of Tokyo.
He has been relying on a free smartphone application called Studyplus that allows him to connect with other users through social networking.
“I have my smartphone with me all the time to find out how many hours I spend on which subject and check how my friends are doing,” Miyauchi said.
On Studyplus, members register the textbooks they are using and keep track of how long and what they studied. The data are automatically displayed in a graph, allowing users to see how many hours they study each day, week and month.
Members can also set goals and confirm what they have achieved at a certain point.
As there are different “communities” depending on the university users wish to enter or the subject they are interested in, members can search for “friends” who have the same goals or interests.
Once they become “friends,” users can view each other’s data, share information and encourage each other.
Takashi Hirose, president of Studyplus Inc., said, “Studying for exams often makes students feel lonely, but this application helps them make friends and keep up their motivation for continuing to study.”
Studyplus has attracted more than 200,000 users since its launch in March 2012. Of the members, about 70 percent are students preparing for university entrance exams.
The Tokyo-based company currently relies on advertising revenue but will consider charging members fees in the future.
The study application business is expected to grow as an increasing number of high school students own smartphones.
In a survey released in September by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, over 80 percent of high school freshmen responded that they had their own smartphones.
Juken Sapuri, another application for smartphones and personal computers, serves as an online preparatory school, providing video lectures by top-rated teachers.
The online school, which costs members ¥980 a month, distributes videos of lectures for high school students at every level as well as for preliminary examinations for universities. The videos can be viewed on demand any number of times.
Users who do not register for the online school can still download for free questions from past entrance exams for the country’s 100 major universities.
The number of Juken Sapuri members preparing for examinations topped 200,000 in fiscal 2012 through March, according to Recruit Marketing Partners Co. The total number of members stood at 450,000 during the last fiscal year and almost 900,000 as of Oct. 20, its website shows.
Shinji Matsuo, supervisor of the application, said, “The application can be an effective tool in supporting those who are unable to go to preparatory schools because their financial situation does not allow them to do so or they live in areas without such schools.”
“We are hoping to narrow the gaps in education for university entrance exams,” he said.

English teachers to study abroad

The Tokyo Board of Education has taken a bold move — perhaps its first ever — to raise the level of English at public schools. If its plan goes without a hitch, eventually all English teachers at Tokyo’s junior high and high schools will have to study and live in an English-speaking country for three months. The requirement is an attempt to improve English in Japan and should be warmly welcomed by anyone caring about Japan’s low level of English competence.
The project is set to start in April when the first group of 200 English teachers in the third year of their careers will be sent for home stays and direct contact with real, living English all over the globe. Tokyo currently has 3,300 English teachers at public junior high and high schools, so the first 200 is just a small beginning.
Hopefully the program will be expanded in the future so that all Tokyo English teachers can participate.
The teachers sent abroad will be given training courses in how to teach students to debate, to base classes on communicative English and, perhaps most importantly, to conduct classes without using Japanese. The Tokyo government last April revised its curriculum guidelines to encourage teachers to avoid using Japanese. Sending teachers overseas is an excellent way to make that happen.
After studying and living abroad, teachers will be ready and able, and maybe even willing to create an English-rich environment for students.
Equally important is that teachers will gain the essential experience, confidence and training to move away from the demands of preparing for college entrance exams toward communicating in real English. Teachers with more experience in the wider world will have the language ability and pedagogical foundation to move English classes toward communication, interaction and understanding, rather than correct answers and memorized patterns.
The requirement to go abroad will also help foster an understanding of different cultures and lifestyles. English has always facilitated broader contact with the world, and now that will have a clear and immediate channel — junior and senior high school English teachers. Teachers will be immersed in cultures and experiences all in English, and will bring home with them something more valuable than the usual omiyage. The best English teachers will be looking forward to this opportunity.
The new move is obviously connected to the 2020 Olympics. Perhaps Tokyo’s major infrastructure weakness is the level of English. This bold new move on the part of the Tokyo Board of Education is a welcome initiative to bringing up Tokyo’s English level — not just to save face when the world arrives for the Olympics but to improve the level of English in a world that uses the language more and more.

Monday, September 09, 2013

Japan sets direction for drawing foreign students

An Education Ministry panel has come up with a basic plan for attracting top-class students to Japan from around the world.

The panel has been studying the issue amid intensifying global competition for talented students. University professors and members of economic organizations are among the panel members.

The panel decided to put emphasis on the fields of engineering, medicine, law, and agriculture.

According to the plan, study abroad coordinators will be placed in 9 regions, including Southeast Asia and Africa.

http://newsonjapan.com/html/newsdesk/article/104273.php

Saturday, September 07, 2013

Japanese universities woo Indian students in education fair

Acknowledging that Japanese universities were not very popular in India, Hata said that currently only about 550 Indian students study in Japan as compared to 1.5 lakh in the US.
Promoting itself as an "affordable" destination for higher education as compared to the west, 20 Japanese universities participated in an education fair on Friday to attract Indian students aspiring to study abroad.

Organised under the "Global 30" project which aims to invite 300,000 foreign students to Japan, the third annual Japanese education fair provided guidance and first-hand counselling to over 1,000 students from Delhi's schools and colleges.
The fair will also be held in Bangalore and Pune.

"India's huge student population is a great attraction and we definitely want to increase our share in the pie," Satoshi Hata, general manager of the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto told IANS.

Acknowledging that Japanese universities were not very popular in India, Hata said that currently only about 550 Indian students study in Japan as compared to 1.5 lakh in the US.

However, "affordable higher education", when compared to the US, UK and Australia, as well as a "holistic learning environment" tilts the scale in favour of Japan, Hata said.

The universities are offering English-only degree courses available at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as well as an improvement in student support services like opportunities to learn Japanese and chances of an internship at Japanese companies.

"Japan's relationship with India has improved significantly, especially in terms of economic welfare. We now need to take this effort one step ahead and enhance human relationships. Education will play a major role," Japanese ambassador to India Takeshi Yagi said.

According to a 2012 report by the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, the number of Indian students going overseas rose a stunning 256%—from 53,266 to 189,629—between 2000 and 2009.

http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/1885325/report-japanese-universities-woo-indian-students-in-education-fair


Thursday, May 30, 2013

Japan may accept more highly skilled foreign workers

The government is considering increasing the number of foreign engineers and researchers accepted into the country by units of 100,000, according to Yasutoshi Nishimura, senior vice minister at the Cabinet Office.
Nishimura signaled the intention to significantly ease the criteria for giving preferential treatment to highly skilled people during a question-and-answer session after giving a lecture Monday in Washington on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s growth strategies.
Nishimura said the government will promote deregulation to allow for 24-hour financial transactions in Tokyo in an effort to strengthen its status as an international financial center and encourage investment.
The proposals are part of the government’s move to set up special strategic zones in and around Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya under Abe’s economic policies.
Nishimura said measures for the Kansai special zone may include strengthening distribution networks via the area’s airports.
Also, the establishment of a center for regenerative and other advanced medicine, as well as the approval of casino operations are among proposals being discussed as ways to attract wealthy tourists from Asian nations, Nishimura said.

Education panel urges Japanese colleges to reach outside

The nation’s universities should try to rejuvenate themselves by collaborating with overseas institutions to offer joint degrees and attracting more foreign teachers and students to nurture global talent among Japanese, a government panel said in proposals released Wednesday.
“We would like to see many world-class universities from Japan by implementing the measures in these proposals,” education minister Hakubun Shimomura told reporters.
The proposals, which mainly focused on higher education, urge Japanese colleges to strive to be more internationally competitive by inviting top-notch foreign institutions to set up programs with universities here at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
The panel also urged introduction of a new, annual salary system that will foster mobility among college teachers, including non-Japanese staff.
The goal is to have within the next decade more than 10 Japanese universities listed in the top-100 world ranking, with the government intensively supporting those institutions that actively hire foreign teachers, enhance partnerships with overseas institutions and offer degrees that can be obtained via classes in English.
Currently only two Japanese universities are in the top-100 in the World University Rankings of the Times Higher Education, with the University of Tokyo at 27th place and Kyoto University at 54th.
The panel is also calling for doubling the number of Japanese who study abroad to 120,000 and increasing the number of foreign students in Japan to 300,000 over an as yet unspecified time frame.
According to the education ministry, there were 58,060 Japanese studying abroad in 2010. In 2012, Japan had 137,756 foreign students.
Also proposed is a drastic expansion of English-language classes in elementary schools, although the panel avoided specifics, including when to start such an expansion or whether to make English an official subject.
English has been taught to fifth- and sixth-graders once a week since the 2011 school year, but the language is not an official subject.
The latest package by the 15-member panel, headed by Waseda University President Kaoru Kamata, is to be finalized and submitted to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe next week.
The panel has already presented two other sets of educational proposals to Abe.
The first one, submitted in February, targeted the problem of bullying, calling on schools to suspend those who torment others and to enhance education on morals.
The proposals came after the belated reporting of a 13-year-old junior high school boy’s October 2011 suicide, and after his school and city admitted, well after the fact and after previous denials, that the victim had been harassed by classmates.
The second one in April recommended an overhaul of education administration in order to give the heads of local governments the authority to appoint local board of education chiefs in order to clarify where responsibility lies. At present, boards of education elect their own leaders.

Japan aims high for growth - Innovation in science is at the heart of government plans to boost the economy.

The Japanese government is working on a plan to revitalize its science workforce by boosting opportunities for female scientists, attracting top talent from abroad and increasing the commercialization of research. So what else is new? Over the past decade, successive administrations have had similar goals, but little progress has been made. This time, analysts and scientists think that things might be different.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is riding high since his Liberal Democratic Party swept back to power in December. He has stimulated the economy, ending 15 years of deflation, jumpstarted the stock market and weakened the yen to spur exports. His reform platform includes a new growth strategy, and central to that strategy is innovation in science and technology.
Abe’s cabinet has already committed hundreds of billions of yen to space, physics and stem-cell research, in a stimulus package announced in January. But more aggressive measures are yet to come. On 17 May, the Council for Science and Technology Policy — the nation’s leading science body, which Abe chairs — released the first draft of a Comprehensive Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy, calling for even more fundamental changes.
To be finalized by the end of this year, the strategy includes eye-catching targets for bolstering the country’s intellectual base. It calls for 30% of new recruits at research institutes and universities to be female by 2016, up from 21.2% in 2010. And faced with fewer university graduates and a shrinking birth rate, Japan is looking to open itself up to foreigners. Under the plan, international researchers would occupy 20% of staff positions at leading research organizations by 2020, and 30% by 2030. That would be an ambitious jump from the 2010 figure of 3.9%.
To increase technology transfer, the plan sets a goal of doubling the number of collaborations worth more than 10 million yen (US$98,000)  between university and industry by 2030. And it calls for the numbers of foreign patent applications and collaborations lasting more than 3 years to similarly double.
Japan needs to make up ground. It has lost the competitive edge it once had over China, South Korea and other Asian rivals in industries such as microelectronics and pharmaceuticals. “Over the past decade, Japan has been stagnant in terms of innovation,” says Yuko Ito, head of the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy division at the Tokyo-based National Institute of Science and Technology Policy.
Abe failed to reverse those trends in 2006, during his first term as prime minister, with a largely ineffectual ‘Innovation 25’ programme. Nonetheless, some see reasons for optimism, not only about economic success but also for a more innovative workforce. The strategy this time “is emphasizing the need for cultivating human resources, especially women”, says Ito.
Hisako Ohtsubo, a molecular biologist at Nihon University near Funabashi who researches gender equality in science, is also cautiously optimistic. She says that it was a pleasant surprise to hear Abe — a conservative who, for example, opposes passage of the imperial throne to the female blood line — repeatedly mention the importance of increasing women’s role in the business world. Most startling for Ohtsubo was Abe’s statement that childcare across Japan should be expanded, something many analysts have said is crucial for women’s ability to have careers in research and other sectors. “He’s a different phenotype,” she says. “Before he would never have talked about such things.”
Still, she is waiting to see whether Abe will follow up his words with the necessary investment in programmes to give extra grants to women and encourage companies and universities to hire women to senior researcher positions, and not just as regular staff. “That’s the only way we will be able to overcome the deeply embedded stereotypes in the system,” Ohtsubo says.
Piero Carninci, a genomics expert based in Yokahama at the RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies with nearly two decades’ experience in Japan, has advice for Abe if he is serious about courting foreigners. As head of RIKEN’s new Division of Genomic Technologies, he is the first foreigner to hold a division director position. The top-down management style of mentors, communication problems in the laboratory and the Japanese lifestyle can all be daunting for people from abroad, he says.
Carninci’s remedy includes giving foreign researchers academic independence and reasonable start-up budgets, as well as assistance in overcoming language problems. Also key: offering an equal opportunity with Japanese nationals to climb the career ladder.
Atsushi Sunami, a science-policy expert at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo, says that efforts to hire overseas talent may also benefit from one of the themes of the government’s growth strategy: deregulation of markets and quasi-governmental organizations, including universities.
Decisions on the main budget items still have to be made, Sunami says. A proposal in the comprehensive strategy would give an annual budget — some 50 billion yen, according to Sunami — to the Council for Science and Technology Policy to fund science. Currently, the council is only an advisory body. But until the budget decisions are made, Sunami says, the strategy is “just a piece of paper”.
Koichi Sumikura of the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy thinks that the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and the ensuing energy shortages, should help to keep innovation on the agenda. “The disaster is what really makes things different this time,” says Sumikura. “Before, politicians talked about innovation without indicating any real direction. Now there is a clear need to recover from the disaster and build a stronger society.”

Thursday, March 14, 2013

9 great ideas from Japan’s NICT student entrepreneur competition


Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) recently held its annual business plan presentation event for college and university students. It’s called Kigyouka Koshien, which literally means ‘entrepreneur championship.’ The event took place at an CyberAgent Ventures’ Startup Basecamp this past Thursday.
NICT provides mentoring to students who have a passion for entrepreneurship. At the Thursday event, nine finalists from different regions came together in Tokyo, all hoping to walk away with the championship. Here’s a quick run down of what the participating teams are working on.
crowd
Judges:

Re-Ja 

oyakoukouMost of us wish we could spend more time with our parents, or perhaps we regret not seeing them as often as we’d like. Presented by students from Kansei Gakuin University and Kobe University, Re-ja is a mobile app that uses gamification to encourage people to talk more with parents. The app presents the same quiz questions to you and your parent, and if you both answer correctly, you will get a reward point that can be used to buy something for them.

Moku Tomo 

Japan is said to have more than 20 million smokers. Moku Tomo is an app that lets them to find a smoking area nearby using a handy map. The business model is based on sponsorships from cigarette companies, from pharmaceutical companies selling nicotine patches, and from restaurants which have such smoking areas. The presenters, from Doshisha University in Kyoto, are now in talks with Japan Tobacco and British Tobacco.

S.P.M.i Series 

Shingo Aida (of Aizu University in Fukushima) has developed an iOS app that acts as an alternative to seat posture measurement instruments. Such instruments are used to prevent those with mobility problems from developing posture issues or sores by ensuring the wheelchair is adjusted specifically for their body size and shape. An instrument of this kind helps people live better but is very costly. So Shingo has developed this app which is much cheaper. The target market is comprised of about 10,000 people in Japan and 80,000 more in the US.
spmi

Private tutor knowledge base 

When we hire a private teacher for our son or daughter, the biggest problem is usually that the quality of the lectures is very much dependent on who you hire. Tamiko Iwama (of Digital Hollywood University) wants to standardize the quality of the lectures by providing tutors with a web-based knowledge sharing platform. Learning materials and slides can be stored on the platform, and tutors can download them via the dashboard and customize their own lectures.

Code Library – Top Award Winner 

It’s often said that learning to reading code is like mastering a new language. But it’s not always easy since other people’s code could be written or structured far differently than what you might envision. And physical books for programming languages can be very costly and bulky. Code Library is a smartphone app that allow users to receive a lecture regardless of time and location. As part of its testing, Hamhei Horiuchi (of Tokyo’s University of Electrocommunications) has introduced a beta app called Code Library Lite, which will enable him to receive lots of feedback from programmers so he can refine the service.
codelibrarylite_screenshots

Zero Gaku Shoku 

A ‘Gakushoku’ is a cafeteria at a university which typically offers decent foods at affordable prices. For students who usually have little or no income, expenses for lunch at the cafeteria can account for most of their spending. That’s why this Chuo University team has come up with the idea of giving students a chance to win a complimentary meal. A QR code is printed on the back of a meal ticket, and a student can then scan it with his smartphone and watch ads while he waits for the meal. The team receives revenue from advertisers and pay a commission to cafeteria owners participating in the program.

C@ndy 

candy
The world’s Muslim community has huge market potential with a population of 1.6 billion people. A team from Yokohama National University hopes to found a sort of Craiglist for Muslims, in order to bridge Muslim communities around the world and here in Japan too. To refine the idea, the team has enlisted feedback from the folks at the Saudi Arabian Embassy and mosques in Tokyo. In partnership with Japanese travel agencies, C@ndy expects to provide information on travel packages for Muslim people, offer Japanese dishes made from Halal foods, and provide venues for praying during the trip.

Iron Beads Master 

Perler beads (or Hama beads) are a popular craft for children. But it’s difficult to build an original design on aa peg board. This team from Yonago National College of Technology hopes to produce a system that lets children create their own designs from their favorite pictures on an iPad. They plan to speak with Kawada Co., Ltd., a local distributor of Perler beads in Japan, to explore the monetization potential of this idea.

ShinBunet 

Elderly people in Japan (and in Okinawa, where this team originates) are eager to use digital devices to browse the web, but in many cases they can’t. In order to bridge this digital divide, the team has developed an app that lets elderly to browse news and updates from social media and blog on an iPad in a way that reflects the newspaper experience. Instead of searching a keyword to look for a specific topic, all you have to do is place your hand over an interesting story on your physical newspaper, just in front of the iPad camera. The app will detect which story you are interested in, and then collect updates from the blogsphere, showing them to you if they were a from a physical newspaper.
koushien_zoomout
Pictured: The team from Okinawa National College of Technology presents ShinbuNet

http://www.startup-dating.com/2013/03/nict-championship-for-students

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Colleges to double foreign students


Japan’s national universities intend to double their admissions of overseas students to 10 percent by 2020 and to also increase the number of courses offered in English two-fold to around 24,000.
The targets, including doubling the number of students attending overseas colleges to 5 percent by 2020, were decided at a meeting in Tokyo of the Japan Association of National Universities. The association, led by University of Tokyo President Junichi Hamada, will incorporate them in its guidelines for the globalization of Japanese universities.
“Unless we set numerical targets, (each university) cannot see how many efforts it should be making,” Hamada told reporters after the meeting. “We should promote the quick globalization of universities by taking every step possible.”

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/03/10/national/colleges-to-double-foreign-students/#.UTvmlxyLC3I

Entrance exam tutors go digital / Cash-strapped university hopefuls flock to free online lecture service


Good news for university hopefuls who cannot afford prep schools: A popular website is now offering free video lectures given by successful entrants of prestigious universities.

The site, "manavee," was launched two years ago by a University of Tokyo student to support those who may not be able to attend cram or prep schools for financial or other reasons. Currently, about 170 students from 15 universities nationwide are participating in the initiative to help teach over 10,000 users.
Student teachers film their lectures using their own video cameras and upload them onto the website as a free learning service.

About 3,200 15-minute lectures covering 11 subjects--including Japanese, mathematics, world history and geology--are available on the manavee website. In addition to basic lectures such as "Avoid failing with just two hours of study! Positive and negative numbers, literal equations and graphs" and "Pinpointing your weak points in English grammar," there are also videos that analyze past exams, such as "Breakdown of University of Tokyo's mathematics by a student of the university" and "Physics for Hokkaido University: Focus on entrance exams from the past two years."

The "teachers" are categorized into 30 teaching styles, such as "serious," "genius-type" and "passionate," to make it easier for users to choose the best tutor to suit their needs. If users register on the website, they can also send questions to teachers by e-mail.

Taketsugu Hanafusa, 23, a junior at the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Letters, came up with the idea to create the site in the autumn of 2010.

"I thought, 'Not everyone can go to prep schools during a recession.' So I wondered if there was a way to help anyone effectively study for entrance exams," he said.

After launching the website with some friends, Hanafusa traveled to nine universities, including colleges in Hokkaido, Nagoya, Kyoto and the Tohoku and Kyushu regions, to seek support from students there.

Manavee's users are grateful for the website, with one saying, "Thanks to the site, I was able to correctly answer about 80 percent of the questions on the National Center Test for University Admissions."

A second-year high school student in Chiba Prefecture said: "As I'm being raised by a single mother, I don't know if should go to a prep school. This video-sharing site helps as I can watch the videos as many times as I want."

This year, about 540,000 people took the National Center Test, a standardized college entrance exam. Meanwhile, manavee's users, which include first- and second-year high school students, now total 11,000.
According to the website's operator, many users are keen to return the favor and teach after passing their entrance exams. In fact, one has already begun teaching since passing the University of Tokyo's entrance exam.

"I'd be delighted if this circle of learning spreads," Hanafusa said.
(Feb. 27, 2013)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T130226004423.htm

Japan to extend stay period for Filipino, Indonesian nurses by 1 yr


The Japanese government plans to give Filipinos and Indonesians seeking to become nurses and caregivers in Japan an extra year in the country to prepare for qualifying exams, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday.

The special measure is based on the low passing rates so far for the prospective healthcare workers from the two Southeast Asian countries, who eventually hope to gain employment in Japan under bilateral free trade accords.

The move will benefit about 500 candidate nurses and caregivers who came to Japan without undergoing six-month Japanese language training sessions and help boost their chances in passing the Japanese qualifying exams.

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2013/02/211082.html

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Japan's Hope: If You Build It, They Will Come


TOKYO — The colorful education minister of Japan, Makiko Tanaka, riled Japanese academia last autumn when she denied accreditation to three new schools on the grounds that “there are too many universities in Japan.”
World Twitter Logo.

Connect With Us on Twitter

Follow@nytimesworldfor international breaking news and headlines.
She later took it back when her decision was met with fierce resistance. (And then she lost her job when the governing party lost a parliamentary election in December.)
But her comment left a lingering question: Japan’s youth population is declining, so why do new universities and departments keep popping up?
The number of 18-year-olds in Japan peaked in 1992 at 2.05 million, dwindling to about 1.2 million by 2012. During that time, the number of four-year universities grew to 783 from 523.
Even greater energy has been poured into thinking up new departments and majors. According to the Ministry of Education, there were 207 new departments, majors and graduate programs in 2011, and an additional 236 in 2012. In 2006, a whopping 482 new departments and majors were introduced.
The boom has been happening for quite some time. Since the late 1990s, more than 2,000 new academic departments and faculties have been created in Japan, despite an aging population. Although dozens of departments are scrapped each year, that still leaves hundreds added to the pile annually.
Meanwhile, existing schools and departments are suffering. According to the Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation of Private Schools in Japan, a Ministry of Education affiliate agency, 46 percent of private universities have empty spaces. The group said that nearly 40 percent of private universities were operating in the red.
Japan has been making an effort to attract more overseas students, but the relatively small number of foreigners is not enough to offset the growing number of university spaces.
To attract students, schools have taken pains to give their freshly minted departments more modern-sounding names. Tokyo universities like Hosei, Kokushikan and Seijo have created schools like the Faculty of Lifelong Learning and Career Studies, 21st-Century Asian Studies and Faculty of Social Innovation.
Provincial universities are doing the same. Utsunomiya Kyowa University in Tochigi Prefecture now has a program for City Life Studies. Konan University in Hyogo Prefecture opened a School of Creative Management, known in English as the Hirao School of Management.
Akita University in Akita Prefecture is opening Japan’s first Faculty of International Natural Resources next year. Kyoto Seika University has been expanding its Faculty of Manga and recently added a Ph.D. in manga to its roster of degree programs.
Professors and administrators affiliated with the new, nontraditional departments say that they emphasize forward-looking, interdisciplinary programs that fit the 21st century. But some experts say they are there mostly to increase enrollment.
“There is a competition to win students, and universities need to show they are doing something by tinkering with their product lineup,” said Hiroshi Kobayashi, editor of College Management magazine, published by Recruit.
As new universities and departments gushed forth in the past decade, complaints have arisen among high school counselors who advise college-bound students.
“The No. 1 complaint among high school counselors, according to our survey, is that they cannot figure out what those new university departments and majors are all about,” Mr. Kobayashi said. “If a student expressed interest in a certain future career, the counselor can say, ‘Oh, in that case, you should apply to this program or that.’ But it is hard to know what the English communication department does, as opposed to the English language department.”
The term “communication” has become a popular term, Mr. Kobayashi said, along with other fashionable words like “international,” “information,” “environment,” “health” and “life.”
According to the National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation, more than 1,200 kinds of undergraduate degrees were offered by Japanese universities in 2009; about 60 percent of them are unique.
Administrators of the new departments say they are establishing programs that prepare students for new challenges facing a society in flux.
At the Faculty of Social Innovation at Seijo University in Tokyo, students study corporate innovation and the roles of social groups and individuals, said Mitsunobu Shinohara, dean of the faculty. Students are exposed to a wide range of disciplines including business, public policy and social psychology, with innovation as an important common thread, he said.
“It’s critical to learn how to approach the issue and how to resolve it,” and not just to study facts, Mr. Shinohara said. He said that a more interdisciplinary approach gained popularity in the early 2000s, when his faculty was established.
New programs typically emphasize the thinking process and not the mere acquisition of knowledge.
“Japanese students take notes and memorize, so they can do well on the tests. But here, what you learn is not as important as how you learn,” said Harumasa Sato, dean of the Hirao School of Management at Konan University.
Mr. Sato said the main purpose of education was to train students to be thinkers, capable of exploring and finding answers on their own. “Students don’t exactly take courses, but rather the goal in this program is to finish five major projects,” which include oral and thesis presentations, Mr. Sato said. His school is about to graduate its first batch of students in March, and their job placement rate “has been pretty good,” he said.
To the extent that his and other new schools are experimenting with new ways to train students, the movement represents efforts to do things that traditional schools have fallen short on, he said.
“People criticize that what we do is not entirely clear. But are other established departments of, say, economics and law doing what they should be doing? Are they creating capable young people who can compete in the globalizing world?” he asked.
“How should Japanese universities be in the age of globalization has been one of the greatest themes for us,” said Kageaki Kajiwara, dean of the School of Asia 21 — whose Japanese name is 21st-Century Asian Studies — at Kokushikan University. “In this day and age, we cannot live without having anything to do with globalization.”
Even though classes are taught in Japanese, nearly a third of the 1,700 students in the department are non-Japanese, with students from China, Iran, Myanmar, Russia and South Korea.
“What’s great about this school is that you can learn about other Asian cultures and get to know the people from those cultures, and at the same time study Japanese language and culture,” Ehsan Sheikhi, a 26-year-old Iranian student, said in fluent Japanese.
Izumi Yamanaka, 22, who is expected to graduate soon from the Faculty of Social Innovation at Seijo University, said that rather than being confusing, it was an advantage to have an intriguing department name on her résumé.
“The interviewer always asked what my major was all about, which means you get a chance to answer and explain,” she said. “That’s one question other students don’t receive.” Ms. Yamanaka just got a job working for a bank in Tokyo.
For some experts, the problem is not that new schools and departments are introduced, but that institutions with lackluster reputations are not allowed to die.
“As society changes, new universities should be created to fill new needs,” said Bruce Stronach, dean of the Japanese campus of Temple University, which is based in Philadelphia. “The problem is that Japanese society is good at building but not at scrapping. There should be greater emphasis on discontinuing universities that cannot fulfill their quotas or no longer serve their original purpose.”
A few of the new schools have failed. In 2010, five universities said they would no longer accept new students and expected to dissolve. In 2012, a Tokyo college that was founded in 2002 said it would close in 2015.
Still, closures and bankruptcies are rare, and schools tend to hang on despite low enrollments.
Most Japanese education institutions — both public and private — depend heavily on grants from the Ministry of Education, which can be suspended or removed if the ministry deems that a university has outlived its purpose, Dr. Stronach said.
Shutting down universities and departments is often difficult because it means dismissing faculty and staff members, which management is loath to do. In fact, school administrators say new departments are sometimes built to make up for lost divisions, often a junior college or a department whose subject is no longer popular.
Mr. Shinohara at the Faculty of Social Innovation at Seijo University admitted that one reason his department came into being was because the junior college division at his university closed — because of a shortage of students.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/world/asia/25iht-educlede25.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Tuition-free preschool education plan eyed


The government will establish a panel to study a plan to eliminate tuition fees for children aged 3 to 5 in a bid to improve preschool education and stem the declining birthrate by easing the burdens of child-rearing households, according to sources.

The government aims to flesh out the details of the plan before the House of Councillors election this summer, and implement the new system from as early as fiscal 2014.

The panel, which will function as a liaison between the government and ruling parties, is set to be launched in March. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reportedly told Masako Mori, state minister for measures on the declining birthrate, to begin work on a draft outline for the system, the sources said.
The panel will be led by three Cabinet ministers--Mori, education minister Hakubun Shimomura and welfare minister Norihisa Tamura. Mori will be in charge of the panel's secretariat, while leaders from the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito's cabinet, education and welfare divisions will also attend panel meetings.

Following an initial meeting in early March, the panel will discuss contentious issues, such as when the plan should be implemented, scope of targeted facilities and funding, at its second meeting in April.
A rough "preschool education outline" will be compiled by around June, the sources said.
Among the facilities the panel will consider making tuition-free are kindergartens, day care centers and so-called authorized kodomo-en facilities, a hybrid between kindergarten and day care.

The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry has estimated about 790 billion yen would be needed annually to finance the measure.

While the consumption tax rate is scheduled to be raised to 10 percent in October 2015, increased tax revenues will be unavailable for the tuition-free plan. The government therefore needs to allocate other funding for the plan when compiling the fiscal 2014 budget or later.

Some within the ruling parties have proposed a plan to gradually introduce tuition-free preschool education by first targeting 5-year-olds. Other lawmakers have suggested reviewing the way increased tax revenues from the planned consumption hike would be utilized.

However, such a review would likely be met with opposition from the Democratic Party of Japan and groups of day care facility operators, among others. As a result, observers say the government will likely have a hard time securing the necessary funds to implement the plan.

Both the LDP and Komeito included tuition-free preschool education plans in their policy pledges for the House of Representatives election in December. The coalition agreement between the two parties also stipulated the parties should continue efforts to implement the plan.

The plan is also seen as an attempt by the ruling parties to win over women and younger generations in the upcoming upper house election.
===
Financing a major obstacle
By Teizo Toyokawa / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

The biggest obstacle in implementing the tuition-free preschool education, which the government and ruling parties see as a key part of reducing the burdens of child-rearing families, is securing the estimated 790 billion yen needed annually to finance the plan.

Revenues from the planned consumption tax rate hike will be unavailable as they will be allocated for social security spending, which includes pension, medicine, nursing care, as well as measures to address the declining birthrate.

Some members of the Liberal Democratic Party have urged that improving preschool education be considered as a measure to stem the declining birthrate, prompting some lawmakers to call for reviews on how tax revenues will be used.

Meanwhile, the government is pushing for a shift from traditional kindergarten and day care centers to kodomo-en facilities, which act as both.

In addition to securing finances for the plan, it is also necessary for the government to study comprehensive measures to address the declining birthrate by reviewing preschool education and day care services.
(Feb. 19, 2013)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T130218003795.htm

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Online English studies benefit Japanese, Filipinos


Mohammad Moin tries to realize what he calls "intellectual fair trade" through his operation of an online English conversation school for Japanese — all taught by Filipino teachers.
News photo
Learning curve: Mohammad Moin, founder and CEO of PIKT, a Tokyo-based online English school, stands in front of a cafe near Shibuya Station. MAMI MARUKO
The inexpensive English lessons are offered to Japanese students via Skype, while at the same time giving employment opportunities to Filipinos — most of whom have graduated from top universities in their countries but have no jobs.
Moin, 33, who was born in Bangladesh, said that several years ago he found out from a Filipino university friend that the Philippines was suffering from high unemployment, especially among women and young people. The two came up with the idea of opening the online school, which is headquartered in Tokyo and a branch in Cebu.
With his team of staff from four countries — Japan, the Philippines, India and South Korea — he created 12 different curricula for the online school, which targets different levels and aims, ranging from elementary and high school students to people studying business English or for English proficiency tests, like the TOEIC or IELTS.
"We have contracts with 150 to 200 Filipino teachers — some of whom are single mothers with children. This was one of the best things to connect the two countries and to provide opportunities to both countries as a social contribution," he said.
He said that when he first arrived in Japan, he was shocked to find out that many Japanese could not communicate well in English.
"When I first came to Japan, I thought that Japanese would be fluent in English, but it was different. I expected them to be fluent, because they are the most developed nation in the world, and the second-biggest economy. I'm from a developing country like Bangladesh, but we can speak English on a certain level. I thought Japanese should be better in English, because they have better (educational) opportunities," he said.
Establishing the online English school, he said, was his own way of "making a contribution to the Japanese society," which gave him an opportunity to study and work for more than a decade.
Moin said that acquiring a foreign language doesn't come easily to anyone. In order to learn any language, one must put a lot of time and effort into it, he said.
"There are methods like 'speed learning' in Japan, such as attaining English just by listening, but it doesn't work like that. You have to be adamant to reach your goal," he said. His own experience with learning Japanese — which he is now fluent in — was spending more than 2,000 hours and learning 5,000 kanji in nine months. He eventually attained level 1 on the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test — the top level.
Moin said he first became interested in Japan through his father, a medical researcher who has visited many countries for his work. His father visited Japan in 1999, and told Moin about his impressions and experiences during his time here.
"He liked Japan very much, and talked to me — I was a high school student at the time — about the Japanese culture. Japan's infrastructure and safeness, kindness, politeness, and hospitality of the Japanese people," he said.
A lot of his classmates studied abroad at some point, and he said he was thinking of doing the same. His father recommended he study in Japan instead of the more popular, English-speaking destinations like the United States and Europe.
Then he happened to see a poster advertising Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Oita Prefecture when he visited the Japanese Embassy in Dhaka. He won a four-year scholarship from the Japanese government, and arrived in Japan in 2001, transferring from Dhaka University to APU in his second year.
APU is the first university in Japan that has a dual-language curriculum — with courses taught in either Japanese or English. The students are from 81 countries, and nearly 50 percent of the students are from overseas.
Moin said he made friends from all over the world, and in his second year established with his friends from Tonga and Canada a free "juku" (cram school), teaching English to local Japanese people.
"We did it as a volunteer activity. (The juku was the starting point for teaching) Japanese and contributing to Japan . . . for their language ability," he said.
Moin graduated from APU in March 2005, and first worked for a Japanese manufacturer based in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture. He was assigned to the business controlling department for three years, where he was responsible for expanding the company's operations in India and Thailand.
He moved to Tokyo in 2007 with his Bangladeshi wife, whom he had married in 2006, and switched jobs to the Japan unit of the German automobile parts and electric tools company Bosch as marketing manager. While working for that company, he attained an MBA from Tsukuba University.
In 2010, he started his company, PIKT, initially as a social venture with support from Bosch, and he quit Bosch in November to concentrate on it full time.
He has recently obtained Japanese nationality, and lives in Shiki, Saitama Prefecture with his wife and two children.
"I wouldn't have been able to bring the business to this stage without my wife's cooperation," said Moin, adding that his wife handles the administrative side of the business. "She believes in me. She never said, 'You can't quit your job (at Bosch).' This helps me and motivates me to move faster."
He said it was hard to manage his time during the early days of the business — juggling his work and the business with the MBA course and family life — and there were many times when he could not sleep at night.
"It was like a one-man show. I had to think a lot and bring all the concepts together — how I wanted the system, the website, the curriculum, and how I should establish my own firm in Japan and the Philippines. But it was a learning experience for me," he said.
He stressed that the most difficult part of the business was to train the Filipino tutors. "They don't know Japanese culture. If they don't know it, they won't know how to teach the Japanese. For example, Japanese are very serious about time. On the contrary, Filipinos are loose at time. You have to train them, because tutors are the backbone of this system. If they don't know the Japanese culture, and they don't know how to teach, nobody will be interested," he said.
To this end, he said he made 100 slides on Japanese culture — about time management of Japanese culture, what Japanese are sensitive about, how they behave, what kind of things they like and dislike — and trains the tutors for at least 16 hours before they actually start teaching.
In the next five years, he said his target is to reach out to "more than 15 million Japanese people" to learn English at his online school.
He said that he also wants to be a bridging point between Japan and the Philippines in the future.
"Japanese branding and knowhow should be spreading all over the world," he said. "Japanese economy is shrinking and you don't have lots of opportunities in Japan. It's time for the small and medium enterprises to go overseas.
"Japanese people should be able to communicate in an international language — which is English. I want the Japanese companies to make an M&A, invest in different Asian countries and take the lead of Asia. That's my vision."
He also hopes his company will be able to employ staff from 50 different countries in the future.
"It's important to have views from people from different countries so that innovative ideas will be born. Also, if we have staff from different countries who have studied in Japan, we can spread the Japanese brand all over the world," he said.