FamilyMart Co., through its network of convenience store outlets in Asia, has begun offering help to foreign students looking to study in Japan.
In cooperation with Kawaijuku Educational Institution, a major prep school chain that offers university entrance exam preparation, and travel agency JTB Corp., FamilyMart will provide free newspapers at its overseas stores containing information on studying in Japan.
The new service will also offer assistance in obtaining visas and finding a place to live and part-time jobs in Japan. The company operates thousands of stores in Asia.
According to a survey of foreign students in Japan by 52school.com Corp., a member of the Kawaijuku group, many students found it hard to obtain information on universities and other schools in Japan matching their areas of study. They also had trouble applying to Japanese schools and finding a place to live upon arrival.
To help address such problems, FamilyMart started distributing a free newspaper with information on study in Japan at its convenience stores in Taiwan in mid-September. Taiwan has more than 2,500 FamilyMart stores.
Customers can pick up school application forms at the stores and receive help on how to apply. JTB will also assist students applying for student visas and make other arrangements, such as accommodations.
FamilyMart will help students get part-time jobs at its domestic stores.
According to Japan Student Services Organization, as of May 2009, about 133,000 foreign students were enrolled at Japanese four-year undergraduate schools, two-year junior colleges, graduate schools and other schools. Many were from Asian countries, including China, South Korea and Taiwan.
Based on a plan advocated in 2008 by then Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to increase the number of foreign students in Japan to 300,000, the government hopes to attract more students from overseas. Government efforts include a project to improve the international competitiveness of Japan's institutions of higher education.
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201010250291.html
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
More foreign students seeking work in Japan as companies pursue global talent
The number of foreign students looking for jobs in Japan is increasing as companies go global and seek more overseas workers -- providing tougher competition for Japanese students amid the ongoing economic downturn.
On Oct. 17 the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO) held a job-seeking preparation seminar for overseas students. A total of 517 students from China, South Korea, Bangladesh and other countries took part -- a turnout that surpassed organizers' expectations. Many of the participants were from emerging Asian countries experiencing rapid economic growth, but wanted to work in Japan more than any other country.
"In China, the employment rate is not necessarily better than in Japan," said Ling Yi, a 27-year-old student from Shanghai who is in his first year of study in a postgraduate course at Kobe University. "The economic downturn and competition are harsh, but I want to find work in Japan."
Another 24-year-old participant from Vietnam, a third-year student at Osaka University, was also keen to work in Japan.
"Vietnam is like Japan 30 years ago. I want to pass on Japan's service system to Vietnam," the student said.
According to JASSO figures, there were 132,720 foreign students in Japan as of May 2009 -- a record high. The number of foreign students seeking jobs at Japanese companies has also been rising each year, reaching 11,040 in 2008.
At the same time Japanese companies have a keen eye on overseas students. About half of the approximately 600 new graduates that Fast Retailing Co., the operator of the Uniqlo chain, plans to take on in 2011 are foreigners. Companies such as Panasonic and Rakuten are also actively hiring personnel from overseas.
Sharp Chairman Katsuhiko Machida said that the talent of workers was a factor in the trend.
"The reason that employment of students from overseas is increasing and regular employment of Japanese is decreasing is a matter of ability," he said.
Mainichi Communications, a major employment information provider, said Japanese students needed to realize the gravity of the situation.
"Companies are cutting back on employment and it's precisely because of this that they are looking at the qualities of the students regardless of their nationalities. Japanese students need a sense of crisis," a company representative said.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20101022p2a00m0na022000c.html
On Oct. 17 the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO) held a job-seeking preparation seminar for overseas students. A total of 517 students from China, South Korea, Bangladesh and other countries took part -- a turnout that surpassed organizers' expectations. Many of the participants were from emerging Asian countries experiencing rapid economic growth, but wanted to work in Japan more than any other country.
"In China, the employment rate is not necessarily better than in Japan," said Ling Yi, a 27-year-old student from Shanghai who is in his first year of study in a postgraduate course at Kobe University. "The economic downturn and competition are harsh, but I want to find work in Japan."
Another 24-year-old participant from Vietnam, a third-year student at Osaka University, was also keen to work in Japan.
"Vietnam is like Japan 30 years ago. I want to pass on Japan's service system to Vietnam," the student said.
According to JASSO figures, there were 132,720 foreign students in Japan as of May 2009 -- a record high. The number of foreign students seeking jobs at Japanese companies has also been rising each year, reaching 11,040 in 2008.
At the same time Japanese companies have a keen eye on overseas students. About half of the approximately 600 new graduates that Fast Retailing Co., the operator of the Uniqlo chain, plans to take on in 2011 are foreigners. Companies such as Panasonic and Rakuten are also actively hiring personnel from overseas.
Sharp Chairman Katsuhiko Machida said that the talent of workers was a factor in the trend.
"The reason that employment of students from overseas is increasing and regular employment of Japanese is decreasing is a matter of ability," he said.
Mainichi Communications, a major employment information provider, said Japanese students needed to realize the gravity of the situation.
"Companies are cutting back on employment and it's precisely because of this that they are looking at the qualities of the students regardless of their nationalities. Japanese students need a sense of crisis," a company representative said.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20101022p2a00m0na022000c.html
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Study abroad key to Japan's future
The lack of student interest in studying abroad is casting a shadow over the future of this quickly graying nation, according to a noted German business professor.
"I can't overemphasize the importance of studying abroad," David Bach, the 35-year-old dean of programs at the IE Business School in Madrid, said in a recent interview with The Japan Times.
"It's incredibly important for Japan to have global managers. I think a global management education experience is a very important contribution to that, knowing people from all over the world, learning from them and learning a foreign language."
Bach, who was in Tokyo earlier this month to recruit students and meet alumni, said that because the Japanese market is bound to shrink due to its aging and shrinking population, Japan must bolster its international business expertise if it is to remain a wealthy nation.
"That means understanding the world. And earlier generations of Japanese managers did that very well," Bach said. "They went to Europe, they went to the U.S., starting in the '50s and the '60s, learning and acquiring the skills, understanding the customers and going out in full force."
It's important for succeeding generations to maintain this spirit in light of tremendous new opportunities in emerging markets, including India, Brazil and China, said Bach, a professor of strategic management.
Founded in 1973, the IE Business School is one of the leading institutions of its kind in the world and has a diverse student body. Often listed among the world's top 20 MBA programs by the Financial Times and The Economist, 90 percent of the students in its English MBA programs come from abroad, covering more than 70 different countries.
"You'll not get that diversity anywhere else. In the United States, at the most international diverse MBA program you might have 30 percent maybe 35 percent international students. Not 90 percent," Bach said.
The school offers each course in both English and Spanish. Of the approximately 700 students in its one-year MBA program, about 500 opt for the English classes, according to the professor.
"The leading European programs, such as ours, INSEAD (in France) and IMD (in Switzerland) are increasingly one-year programs. They are not two-year programs," he said, referring to the MBA programs in the U.S. "So, essentially, with half the time, with a lot more diversity, you can get the same degree."
Bach graduated from Yale University and received his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Berkeley.
Bach, who also studied political science outside his own country, said it's very important to have the experience of living abroad and interacting with the people there.
"It provides you with ways to critically assess your own country and your own experience. Until you are in a foreign country, you take everything for granted," Bach said. "Comparison is incredibly important when it comes to gaining real insight."
Asked about the impression of Japanese students, Bach said they are smart and well-prepared. "The Japanese students add a lot to our program."
The knowledge of Japanese students, who have grown up in a Japanese political economy and who understand the way Japanese corporate governance works, is very important to the MBA programs, he said. "Japanese students contribute something in our discussions that others cannot contribute."
The school enrolls about 10 to 15 Japanese students every year. Although the numbers have dropped off in the past, they are picking up again and the school hopes more will apply, Bach said.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20101019f1.html
"I can't overemphasize the importance of studying abroad," David Bach, the 35-year-old dean of programs at the IE Business School in Madrid, said in a recent interview with The Japan Times.
"It's incredibly important for Japan to have global managers. I think a global management education experience is a very important contribution to that, knowing people from all over the world, learning from them and learning a foreign language."
Bach, who was in Tokyo earlier this month to recruit students and meet alumni, said that because the Japanese market is bound to shrink due to its aging and shrinking population, Japan must bolster its international business expertise if it is to remain a wealthy nation.
"That means understanding the world. And earlier generations of Japanese managers did that very well," Bach said. "They went to Europe, they went to the U.S., starting in the '50s and the '60s, learning and acquiring the skills, understanding the customers and going out in full force."
It's important for succeeding generations to maintain this spirit in light of tremendous new opportunities in emerging markets, including India, Brazil and China, said Bach, a professor of strategic management.
Founded in 1973, the IE Business School is one of the leading institutions of its kind in the world and has a diverse student body. Often listed among the world's top 20 MBA programs by the Financial Times and The Economist, 90 percent of the students in its English MBA programs come from abroad, covering more than 70 different countries.
"You'll not get that diversity anywhere else. In the United States, at the most international diverse MBA program you might have 30 percent maybe 35 percent international students. Not 90 percent," Bach said.
The school offers each course in both English and Spanish. Of the approximately 700 students in its one-year MBA program, about 500 opt for the English classes, according to the professor.
"The leading European programs, such as ours, INSEAD (in France) and IMD (in Switzerland) are increasingly one-year programs. They are not two-year programs," he said, referring to the MBA programs in the U.S. "So, essentially, with half the time, with a lot more diversity, you can get the same degree."
Bach graduated from Yale University and received his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Berkeley.
Bach, who also studied political science outside his own country, said it's very important to have the experience of living abroad and interacting with the people there.
"It provides you with ways to critically assess your own country and your own experience. Until you are in a foreign country, you take everything for granted," Bach said. "Comparison is incredibly important when it comes to gaining real insight."
Asked about the impression of Japanese students, Bach said they are smart and well-prepared. "The Japanese students add a lot to our program."
The knowledge of Japanese students, who have grown up in a Japanese political economy and who understand the way Japanese corporate governance works, is very important to the MBA programs, he said. "Japanese students contribute something in our discussions that others cannot contribute."
The school enrolls about 10 to 15 Japanese students every year. Although the numbers have dropped off in the past, they are picking up again and the school hopes more will apply, Bach said.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20101019f1.html
Sunday, October 17, 2010
ELS plans language centres on campus
A SUBSIDIARY of language teaching giant Berlitz is planning to establish English teaching schools for foreign students at several Australian universities.
ELS has almost 50 schools with 15,000 students in the US and plans to expand into Australia and Canada.
ELS offers its own certificate of English proficiency, which competes with the widely accepted IELTS and TOEFL qualifications.
More than 600 US universities use the ELS 112 certification and 46 of them have an ELS language school on campus. The company also has a network of 1200 recruiting agents across the world looking for students who want to study abroad.
The company has been eyeing the strong growth in international student numbers in Australia, which it sees, along with Canada, as the next frontier. It has begun talks with several Australian universities.
ELS director of public relations Tadashi Okamura told the HES the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development was predicting 7.2 per cent annual growth in foreign student numbers worldwide, with China, South Korea and Saudi Arabia the big growth areas.
"We will see more and more opportunity in this area, especially in China," he said.
"A lot of people want to go to university, but because of the [relatively small] number of universities in China, they have to look for another country to study in.
"We have decided to expand this service not only in the US but to Australia and also Canada. We want to establish a network of universities in English-speaking countries."
He said one Australian university, which he declined to name, had already accepted the ELS 112 certificate of proficiency and the company was hoping this breakthrough would lead to broad acceptance across the sector.
Mr Okamura said ELS had already been in contact with the federal government about its intentions to expand into Australia and was pleased with the support it received.
Twenty per cent of undergraduate students in Australia are international students, compared with 3 per cent in Japan, he said.
"Australia is very, very active in recruiting international students. This is a national government policy to increase the number of international students, so they [the federal government] are very keen to work with us."
The company's pitch to universities is to deliver them foreign students with guaranteed English competency, allowing the universities to focus on delivering undergraduate and postgraduate courses and research.
Its pitch to students is about continuity: they can do their English training and degree in the same place.
"For the students we provide intensive English training, provide accommodation and help in applying to universities," Mr Okamura said.
ELS is aiming to establish language centres at as many universities as possible, depending on demand and student numbers. Its US operation has one language school for every 13 universities that accept its ELS 112 certification.
Like Berlitz, ELS is part of the publicly listed Benesse Group. The group's core business has been in educational products and services in Japan, but with the country's fertility rate dwindling, it has advanced into English teaching abroad through its acquisition of Berlitz and ELS.
Benesse, with interests in nursing homes in Japan, appears to have deep pockets to fund the expansion.
ELS has almost 50 schools with 15,000 students in the US and plans to expand into Australia and Canada.
ELS offers its own certificate of English proficiency, which competes with the widely accepted IELTS and TOEFL qualifications.
More than 600 US universities use the ELS 112 certification and 46 of them have an ELS language school on campus. The company also has a network of 1200 recruiting agents across the world looking for students who want to study abroad.
The company has been eyeing the strong growth in international student numbers in Australia, which it sees, along with Canada, as the next frontier. It has begun talks with several Australian universities.
ELS director of public relations Tadashi Okamura told the HES the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development was predicting 7.2 per cent annual growth in foreign student numbers worldwide, with China, South Korea and Saudi Arabia the big growth areas.
"We will see more and more opportunity in this area, especially in China," he said.
"A lot of people want to go to university, but because of the [relatively small] number of universities in China, they have to look for another country to study in.
"We have decided to expand this service not only in the US but to Australia and also Canada. We want to establish a network of universities in English-speaking countries."
He said one Australian university, which he declined to name, had already accepted the ELS 112 certificate of proficiency and the company was hoping this breakthrough would lead to broad acceptance across the sector.
Mr Okamura said ELS had already been in contact with the federal government about its intentions to expand into Australia and was pleased with the support it received.
Twenty per cent of undergraduate students in Australia are international students, compared with 3 per cent in Japan, he said.
"Australia is very, very active in recruiting international students. This is a national government policy to increase the number of international students, so they [the federal government] are very keen to work with us."
The company's pitch to universities is to deliver them foreign students with guaranteed English competency, allowing the universities to focus on delivering undergraduate and postgraduate courses and research.
Its pitch to students is about continuity: they can do their English training and degree in the same place.
"For the students we provide intensive English training, provide accommodation and help in applying to universities," Mr Okamura said.
ELS is aiming to establish language centres at as many universities as possible, depending on demand and student numbers. Its US operation has one language school for every 13 universities that accept its ELS 112 certification.
Like Berlitz, ELS is part of the publicly listed Benesse Group. The group's core business has been in educational products and services in Japan, but with the country's fertility rate dwindling, it has advanced into English teaching abroad through its acquisition of Berlitz and ELS.
Benesse, with interests in nursing homes in Japan, appears to have deep pockets to fund the expansion.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Universities looking to go global
Fostering global human resources seems all the rage these days and several Japanese universities are jumping in, opening their doors to foreign students who aren't proficient in Japanese in a bid to snatch top-class talent from around the world.
While the institutions prepare to make their programs attractive to foreign students, university officials say the private sector should also open up so these graduates will stay in Japan and embark on solid career paths.
Under the Global 30 project initiated by the education ministry last year, by the end of fiscal 2013 more than 130 undergraduate and graduate courses conducted completely in English will be launched at 13 universities acting as Japan's "global education hubs."
The schools, selected by the education ministry, include the University of Tokyo and Waseda, Keio, Meiji and Nagoya universities. Global 30 is one of the measures launched to achieve a goal set out in 2008 by then Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to attract 300,000 foreign students a year by 2020.
Through this project alone, the number of foreign students at the 13 universities should reach 50,000 by fiscal 2020, a ministry report says. Another aim of Global 30 is to reverse the decline in Japanese studying abroad, raising it to 10,000 from 4,000 now.
The program will give each university subsidies of between ¥200 million and ¥400 million a year until fiscal 2013, and they are expected to make great strides in becoming more international.
Efforts include establishing at least one "taught-in-English" course in both the undergraduate and graduate levels, setting up one-stop information offices overseas, providing foreign students opportunities to learn Japanese language and culture, and increasing the number of foreign teachers.
"This is a big chance," said Yoshihito Watanabe, vice president of Nagoya University. "We had to internationalize regardless of the launch of Global 30. But now, with the funds from the government, we can take active steps" to make Japanese campuses more international.
Most of the universities have spent the last year preparing, so the majority of the new courses are scheduled to kick off this fall and over the next two academic years.
For example, Waseda University opened four undergraduate and five graduate English-only courses Tuesday and is scheduled to open another undergraduate course in 2011 and a graduate course in 2012.
Nagoya University is scheduled to start five undergraduate and six graduate courses in October 2011, aiming to raise its foreign enrollment, which was 1,214 in 2008, to 3,000 by the end of fiscal 2020.
Faculty members are promoting the school and recruiting students overseas, including in the United States, Europe, Australia, Mongolia and Singapore, visiting top high schools and setting up booths at major international education events, Watanabe said.
While the government and the universities may have high hopes for luring top-class foreign talent, the project, there are plenty of hurdles, experts say.
One concern is whether the idea is truly realistic.
"We are now doing the best we can. . . . Some faculty question whether foreign students will actually choose to study in a country where English is not the first language," Watanabe said. "But we will not accept students who aren't qualified just so we can fill the seats we have prepared."
Another university official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the schools will bear up even if only about 20 percent of the seats are filled the first year.
"The important thing is to provide high-quality education and build up its reputation. Then, hopefully, many (top-class) students will come forward through word of mouth," the official said.
Etsuko Katsu, vice president of Meiji University, said one of the keys to attracting foreign students is to provide something extra in the curriculum and to put an emphasis on Japan.
As an attempt, Meiji is scheduled to start an undergraduate course next year on modern Japanese culture, focusing on manga, "anime," video games and other aspects of the "Cool Japan" fad the government has been promoting overseas.
Katsu also stressed that the ultimate goal of the plan is to actually improve the level of Japanese research, not foreign enrollment. By raising the academic level, many first-class students will come naturally, she said.
Meanwhile, some critics have raised doubts about whether the private sector, which is where the demand for global students is coming from, will have jobs ready for them.
Shigeharu Kato, deputy director general of the Higher Education Bureau at the education ministry, said at a joint forum last month in Tokyo that it is critical to collaborate with the private sector.
"Cooperation between universities and business is vital" to Global 30's end results, Kato said.
The Global 30 University-Business Joint Forum brought together officials from the education and economy ministries, universities and corporations to exchange views on the globalization of higher education in Japan.
Executives from Rakuten Inc. and Sony Corp. at the forum expressed a strong desire to recruit first-class international students, but observers say most companies are still reluctant to follow suit.
Figures also show that there aren't enough jobs for foreign students.
According to a 2007 survey by the Japan Students Service Organization of privately funded international students attending Japanese universities, 61.3 percent said they would like to get a job in Japan. But only 30.6 percent of all foreign students who graduated in 2007 said they found a job in this country.
In the same year, 96.3 percent of Japanese undergraduate students looking for a job secured employment, according to the labor ministry.
"Top executives at large corporations say they will hire foreign students without Japanese-language proficiency, only if they are fluent in English and have excelled at the academic level. But in reality, they don't," said Watanabe of Nagoya University. "When such (top-class) students apply, the personnel division says they should have scored at least Level 2 on the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in order to have smooth communications."
Although all 13 schools will be offering Japanese classes for international students, Japanese corporations must realize they have to change their attitude and be more flexible about hiring foreign talent, Meiji University's Katsu said.
"(Japanese) corporations have to change. Unless the whole society changes, Japan can't survive in the globalized world," she said.
On top of these challenges, Global 30 is already suffering from a serious problem in its first year. Funding for the project was cut by around 20 percent through the "shiwake" budget screening process started last year by the Democratic Party of Japan-led government.
Another 17 core universities are supposed to be selected by 2013 to bring the total to 30, as the name of the project says, but it is likely to remain at 13 because of budget cuts, said Kazuki Fukuda, deputy director of the education ministry's Higher Education Bureau.
Watanabe said the budget cut is having a big impact but that Nagoya University will stick to its original plan.
"There are many factors in accepting foreign students. It is true that we want talented students from overseas, but I also hope the presence of ambitious and aggressive students will stimulate Japanese students, who tend to be inward-looking," he said, pointing out that fewer Japanese students are seeking to study overseas.
"By increasing the number of such foreign students (on campus), domestic students are forced to use English, and through creating (an international) environment, I think Japanese students will turn their eyes to the outside world," he said.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100923f1.html
While the institutions prepare to make their programs attractive to foreign students, university officials say the private sector should also open up so these graduates will stay in Japan and embark on solid career paths.
Under the Global 30 project initiated by the education ministry last year, by the end of fiscal 2013 more than 130 undergraduate and graduate courses conducted completely in English will be launched at 13 universities acting as Japan's "global education hubs."
The schools, selected by the education ministry, include the University of Tokyo and Waseda, Keio, Meiji and Nagoya universities. Global 30 is one of the measures launched to achieve a goal set out in 2008 by then Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to attract 300,000 foreign students a year by 2020.
Through this project alone, the number of foreign students at the 13 universities should reach 50,000 by fiscal 2020, a ministry report says. Another aim of Global 30 is to reverse the decline in Japanese studying abroad, raising it to 10,000 from 4,000 now.
The program will give each university subsidies of between ¥200 million and ¥400 million a year until fiscal 2013, and they are expected to make great strides in becoming more international.
Efforts include establishing at least one "taught-in-English" course in both the undergraduate and graduate levels, setting up one-stop information offices overseas, providing foreign students opportunities to learn Japanese language and culture, and increasing the number of foreign teachers.
"This is a big chance," said Yoshihito Watanabe, vice president of Nagoya University. "We had to internationalize regardless of the launch of Global 30. But now, with the funds from the government, we can take active steps" to make Japanese campuses more international.
Most of the universities have spent the last year preparing, so the majority of the new courses are scheduled to kick off this fall and over the next two academic years.
For example, Waseda University opened four undergraduate and five graduate English-only courses Tuesday and is scheduled to open another undergraduate course in 2011 and a graduate course in 2012.
Nagoya University is scheduled to start five undergraduate and six graduate courses in October 2011, aiming to raise its foreign enrollment, which was 1,214 in 2008, to 3,000 by the end of fiscal 2020.
Faculty members are promoting the school and recruiting students overseas, including in the United States, Europe, Australia, Mongolia and Singapore, visiting top high schools and setting up booths at major international education events, Watanabe said.
While the government and the universities may have high hopes for luring top-class foreign talent, the project, there are plenty of hurdles, experts say.
One concern is whether the idea is truly realistic.
"We are now doing the best we can. . . . Some faculty question whether foreign students will actually choose to study in a country where English is not the first language," Watanabe said. "But we will not accept students who aren't qualified just so we can fill the seats we have prepared."
Another university official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the schools will bear up even if only about 20 percent of the seats are filled the first year.
"The important thing is to provide high-quality education and build up its reputation. Then, hopefully, many (top-class) students will come forward through word of mouth," the official said.
Etsuko Katsu, vice president of Meiji University, said one of the keys to attracting foreign students is to provide something extra in the curriculum and to put an emphasis on Japan.
As an attempt, Meiji is scheduled to start an undergraduate course next year on modern Japanese culture, focusing on manga, "anime," video games and other aspects of the "Cool Japan" fad the government has been promoting overseas.
Katsu also stressed that the ultimate goal of the plan is to actually improve the level of Japanese research, not foreign enrollment. By raising the academic level, many first-class students will come naturally, she said.
Meanwhile, some critics have raised doubts about whether the private sector, which is where the demand for global students is coming from, will have jobs ready for them.
Shigeharu Kato, deputy director general of the Higher Education Bureau at the education ministry, said at a joint forum last month in Tokyo that it is critical to collaborate with the private sector.
"Cooperation between universities and business is vital" to Global 30's end results, Kato said.
The Global 30 University-Business Joint Forum brought together officials from the education and economy ministries, universities and corporations to exchange views on the globalization of higher education in Japan.
Executives from Rakuten Inc. and Sony Corp. at the forum expressed a strong desire to recruit first-class international students, but observers say most companies are still reluctant to follow suit.
Figures also show that there aren't enough jobs for foreign students.
According to a 2007 survey by the Japan Students Service Organization of privately funded international students attending Japanese universities, 61.3 percent said they would like to get a job in Japan. But only 30.6 percent of all foreign students who graduated in 2007 said they found a job in this country.
In the same year, 96.3 percent of Japanese undergraduate students looking for a job secured employment, according to the labor ministry.
"Top executives at large corporations say they will hire foreign students without Japanese-language proficiency, only if they are fluent in English and have excelled at the academic level. But in reality, they don't," said Watanabe of Nagoya University. "When such (top-class) students apply, the personnel division says they should have scored at least Level 2 on the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in order to have smooth communications."
Although all 13 schools will be offering Japanese classes for international students, Japanese corporations must realize they have to change their attitude and be more flexible about hiring foreign talent, Meiji University's Katsu said.
"(Japanese) corporations have to change. Unless the whole society changes, Japan can't survive in the globalized world," she said.
On top of these challenges, Global 30 is already suffering from a serious problem in its first year. Funding for the project was cut by around 20 percent through the "shiwake" budget screening process started last year by the Democratic Party of Japan-led government.
Another 17 core universities are supposed to be selected by 2013 to bring the total to 30, as the name of the project says, but it is likely to remain at 13 because of budget cuts, said Kazuki Fukuda, deputy director of the education ministry's Higher Education Bureau.
Watanabe said the budget cut is having a big impact but that Nagoya University will stick to its original plan.
"There are many factors in accepting foreign students. It is true that we want talented students from overseas, but I also hope the presence of ambitious and aggressive students will stimulate Japanese students, who tend to be inward-looking," he said, pointing out that fewer Japanese students are seeking to study overseas.
"By increasing the number of such foreign students (on campus), domestic students are forced to use English, and through creating (an international) environment, I think Japanese students will turn their eyes to the outside world," he said.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100923f1.html
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Japan's Globalization Project Stalls as Some Criticize Focus on Elite Universities
As Japan watchers warn that the island nation is becoming more insular, the government's newest bid to internationalize Japan's stuffy higher-education system—the misnamed Global 30—is off to a wobbly start.
The goal was to recruit 30 universities and support their internationalization efforts. Beginning last year on a 3.2-billion-yen, or about $38-million, budget, the project aims to significantly increase the number of foreign students in the country and Japanese students studying abroad.
But the education ministry's tough selection criteria mean that just 13 elite universities have been chosen so far. Government cuts have already shaved up to 30 percent from the budget allocated to each institution. And the remaining 17 spots open to universities are unlikely to be filled, according to two administrators at universities in the exclusive club.
"It's disappointing," says Go Yoshida, a spokesman for the Office of International Strategic Planning at Nagoya University, one of the 13 selectees. "Quite honestly, Japan is late in the game of globalization in higher education. But the government's left hand doesn't know what its right hand is doing."
The stakes for this island nation are high. After more than two decades and billions of yen in scholarships, fewer than 4 percent of Japan's university students come from abroad—133,000, well below China, with 223,000, and the United States with 672,000. Just 5 percent of its 353,000 university teachers are foreign, according to ministry of education statistics. Most of those teach English.
At the opposite end of the education pendulum, students here are increasingly staying home: Japanese undergraduate enrollment in American universities has plummeted by more than half since 2000, estimates the ministry. Japanese student enrollment in European institutions is also down.
"Frankly, in my view Japan is going backwards," says Ian de Stains, executive director of the British Chamber of Commerce in Japan, and one of many observers who believe that despite government rhetoric about internationalization, Japan is becoming more isolationist. "The big danger is that Japan will lose touch and fail to compete globally."
South Korea, with less than half Japan's population, sends twice as many students to the United States. At some American universities, such as Cornell, the number of Japanese students is behind not just the number from China, India, and South Korea, but even from Thailand and tiny Singapore. "The drop is without precedent," says Mark Selden, a senior fellow at Cornell's East Asia program.
Global 30 is supposed to partly remedy those ills, helping Japan reach a government goal of 300,000 foreign students by 2020, while sending the same number of Japanese students abroad.
Participating universities receive an annual grant of 200-400 million yen (between $2.4-million and $4.8-million) annually for five years to employ foreign faculty members and English-speaking support staff, and to create new all-English undergraduate courses. Each university is also required to set up offices outside Japan, both to recruit locally and help Japanese students study in other countries.
Japan's education ministry hopes that its modest commitment will help transform the country's academic landscape by luring more international students and generating more collaboration between foreign and Japanese professors.
"We think those universities will set an example for other colleges by leading with good practice," says Shigeharu Kato, deputy director of the Higher Education Bureau at the ministry. "This practice will then diffuse to other colleges around the country."
With Japan's population falling and dozens of private colleges facing bankruptcy, the government has little choice but to look beyond the country's borders. Education specialists agree that tripling the intake of foreign students will expose their Japanese counterparts to the world, and could help create a cadre of foreign academics who studied in Japan.
But while praising the Global 30 program, some are questioning its focus on elite universities. Priority was given to large institutions with proven research capacity, such as the University of Tokyo and the private Waseda University, says Akiyoshi Yonezawa, an associate professor at the Center for the Advancement of Higher Education in Tohoku University—another of the 13 selected institutions.
Tough Demands
"Smaller and midsized institutions, despite satisfying many of the strong international criteria, were eliminated from the selection process," he says. He adds that some of the country's best universities, such as the Tokyo Institute of Technology, were driven away from the program by its demands, which included raising the percentage of international students to 20 percent and the share of international professors to 10 percent by 2020.
Paul Snowden, dean of Waseda's School of International Liberal Studies, says that institutions that have achieved success attracting international students should have been rewarded for their efforts but instead were disqualified for having already met the ministry's goals.
Half of the students at Mr. Snowden's institution are from abroad, he says. But despite this accomplishment, three other Waseda faculties—the departments of political science; economics, science, and engineering; and social sciences — were selected for the Global 30.
"It was flattering, but disappointing, that basically our curriculum had been imitated by the ministry and disseminated to other places, but we weren't allowed any of the money," Mr. Snowden says.
He questions whether the ratio the School of International Liberal Studies has achieved can be replicated by others. "I'm pretty sure that extreme case is not going to be achieved by more than a handful of institutions in Japan, though."
Despite the concerns about the new program, Mr. Kato of the education ministry says Global 30 is now taking off and is "almost at cruising altitude." And there are some signs to support that.
Nagoya University's Mr. Yoshida says the roughly $3.5-million it received has helped the institution raise its intake of foreign undergraduate and graduate students by 170, and open new offices in Germany and Uzbekistan.
Yet the colleges and the ministry have been frustrated by cost cutting ordered by the Democratic Party of Japan government, which took power last year just after Global 30 was approved. Nagoya's government support, for example, will shrink by 27 percent in its next fiscal year, which starts in April. "We're just starting to launch this and the cuts have come. And we fear more are due," says Mr. Yoshida.
Some believe that the government may be switching priorities to a separate effort called Campus Asia, which is intended to harmonize China, Japan, and South Korea's colleges and ultimately keep more students in the region. A working group from each of the countries is set to meet in China this year, with the project officially starting in April.
Little Fiscal Legroom
With the worst public debt in the industrialized world—900 trillion yen, or $10.6-trillion—Japan has much less fiscal legroom than its competitors. That is likely to mean careful scrutiny of all education spending and a demand that colleges and the education ministry deliver more bang for the government's buck.
Even if this year's cuts were reversed and the government met its financial commitments to Global 30, Mr. Yonezawa of Tohoku University and others doubt that the student targets are attainable without major reform outside the education system. "It is impossible to achieve this sort of internationalization only with Global 30," he says, adding that Japan needs to focus on its second- and third-tier colleges. He also urges major changes in the labor markets and among Japan's conservative companies to give foreign graduates an incentive to stay and work in the country.
Despite these looming issues, Waseda's Mr. Snowden is among many who believe that Japan is still in the race. "Japan is indeed late in the game. But with much interest from Korea and China, I think it can find a new role as an international education base" within the region.
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Slow-Start-for-Japans/124346/
The goal was to recruit 30 universities and support their internationalization efforts. Beginning last year on a 3.2-billion-yen, or about $38-million, budget, the project aims to significantly increase the number of foreign students in the country and Japanese students studying abroad.
But the education ministry's tough selection criteria mean that just 13 elite universities have been chosen so far. Government cuts have already shaved up to 30 percent from the budget allocated to each institution. And the remaining 17 spots open to universities are unlikely to be filled, according to two administrators at universities in the exclusive club.
"It's disappointing," says Go Yoshida, a spokesman for the Office of International Strategic Planning at Nagoya University, one of the 13 selectees. "Quite honestly, Japan is late in the game of globalization in higher education. But the government's left hand doesn't know what its right hand is doing."
The stakes for this island nation are high. After more than two decades and billions of yen in scholarships, fewer than 4 percent of Japan's university students come from abroad—133,000, well below China, with 223,000, and the United States with 672,000. Just 5 percent of its 353,000 university teachers are foreign, according to ministry of education statistics. Most of those teach English.
At the opposite end of the education pendulum, students here are increasingly staying home: Japanese undergraduate enrollment in American universities has plummeted by more than half since 2000, estimates the ministry. Japanese student enrollment in European institutions is also down.
"Frankly, in my view Japan is going backwards," says Ian de Stains, executive director of the British Chamber of Commerce in Japan, and one of many observers who believe that despite government rhetoric about internationalization, Japan is becoming more isolationist. "The big danger is that Japan will lose touch and fail to compete globally."
South Korea, with less than half Japan's population, sends twice as many students to the United States. At some American universities, such as Cornell, the number of Japanese students is behind not just the number from China, India, and South Korea, but even from Thailand and tiny Singapore. "The drop is without precedent," says Mark Selden, a senior fellow at Cornell's East Asia program.
Global 30 is supposed to partly remedy those ills, helping Japan reach a government goal of 300,000 foreign students by 2020, while sending the same number of Japanese students abroad.
Participating universities receive an annual grant of 200-400 million yen (between $2.4-million and $4.8-million) annually for five years to employ foreign faculty members and English-speaking support staff, and to create new all-English undergraduate courses. Each university is also required to set up offices outside Japan, both to recruit locally and help Japanese students study in other countries.
Japan's education ministry hopes that its modest commitment will help transform the country's academic landscape by luring more international students and generating more collaboration between foreign and Japanese professors.
"We think those universities will set an example for other colleges by leading with good practice," says Shigeharu Kato, deputy director of the Higher Education Bureau at the ministry. "This practice will then diffuse to other colleges around the country."
With Japan's population falling and dozens of private colleges facing bankruptcy, the government has little choice but to look beyond the country's borders. Education specialists agree that tripling the intake of foreign students will expose their Japanese counterparts to the world, and could help create a cadre of foreign academics who studied in Japan.
But while praising the Global 30 program, some are questioning its focus on elite universities. Priority was given to large institutions with proven research capacity, such as the University of Tokyo and the private Waseda University, says Akiyoshi Yonezawa, an associate professor at the Center for the Advancement of Higher Education in Tohoku University—another of the 13 selected institutions.
Tough Demands
"Smaller and midsized institutions, despite satisfying many of the strong international criteria, were eliminated from the selection process," he says. He adds that some of the country's best universities, such as the Tokyo Institute of Technology, were driven away from the program by its demands, which included raising the percentage of international students to 20 percent and the share of international professors to 10 percent by 2020.
Paul Snowden, dean of Waseda's School of International Liberal Studies, says that institutions that have achieved success attracting international students should have been rewarded for their efforts but instead were disqualified for having already met the ministry's goals.
Half of the students at Mr. Snowden's institution are from abroad, he says. But despite this accomplishment, three other Waseda faculties—the departments of political science; economics, science, and engineering; and social sciences — were selected for the Global 30.
"It was flattering, but disappointing, that basically our curriculum had been imitated by the ministry and disseminated to other places, but we weren't allowed any of the money," Mr. Snowden says.
He questions whether the ratio the School of International Liberal Studies has achieved can be replicated by others. "I'm pretty sure that extreme case is not going to be achieved by more than a handful of institutions in Japan, though."
Despite the concerns about the new program, Mr. Kato of the education ministry says Global 30 is now taking off and is "almost at cruising altitude." And there are some signs to support that.
Nagoya University's Mr. Yoshida says the roughly $3.5-million it received has helped the institution raise its intake of foreign undergraduate and graduate students by 170, and open new offices in Germany and Uzbekistan.
Yet the colleges and the ministry have been frustrated by cost cutting ordered by the Democratic Party of Japan government, which took power last year just after Global 30 was approved. Nagoya's government support, for example, will shrink by 27 percent in its next fiscal year, which starts in April. "We're just starting to launch this and the cuts have come. And we fear more are due," says Mr. Yoshida.
Some believe that the government may be switching priorities to a separate effort called Campus Asia, which is intended to harmonize China, Japan, and South Korea's colleges and ultimately keep more students in the region. A working group from each of the countries is set to meet in China this year, with the project officially starting in April.
Little Fiscal Legroom
With the worst public debt in the industrialized world—900 trillion yen, or $10.6-trillion—Japan has much less fiscal legroom than its competitors. That is likely to mean careful scrutiny of all education spending and a demand that colleges and the education ministry deliver more bang for the government's buck.
Even if this year's cuts were reversed and the government met its financial commitments to Global 30, Mr. Yonezawa of Tohoku University and others doubt that the student targets are attainable without major reform outside the education system. "It is impossible to achieve this sort of internationalization only with Global 30," he says, adding that Japan needs to focus on its second- and third-tier colleges. He also urges major changes in the labor markets and among Japan's conservative companies to give foreign graduates an incentive to stay and work in the country.
Despite these looming issues, Waseda's Mr. Snowden is among many who believe that Japan is still in the race. "Japan is indeed late in the game. But with much interest from Korea and China, I think it can find a new role as an international education base" within the region.
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Slow-Start-for-Japans/124346/
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
New financial assistance program to encourage more students to study abroad
The government is set to introduce a new program that will encourage more students to study abroad by giving them financial assistance to stay overseas for a short period of time, it has been learned.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is launching what it has dubbed a "short visit" program from next fiscal year to boost the number of students who study abroad. It plans to dispatch 7,000 students overseas for a short stay in fiscal 2011. The ministry will include 1.7 billion yen for the program in its budget requests for next fiscal year.
According to the ministry, the number of university students studying abroad had been on the increase until around 1999, but has since declined to an annual 80,000 or so as students are said to be getting more "inward-looking." Even the United States, which is the most popular destination for Japanese students, hosted 30 percent fewer students from Japan in 2008 than in 2004.
While the ministry currently provides a one-year or longer study abroad program, it receives only three times the number of applications as seats available. In a bid to encourage more students to go abroad, the ministry will solicit students who are willing to stay overseas for a period of two weeks to three months so they can get a taste of what an overseas education is like.
Undergraduate students at certain universities -- which have student exchange programs with counterparts overseas and will offer students credits even for a short stay abroad -- will be given financial assistance of up to 80,000 yen for their living costs abroad per month and up to 80,000 yen for one-way airfares.
The ministry's latest white paper on science and technology has pointed out that researchers with overseas experience are more productive, conducting international joint research and coauthoring papers with foreign counterparts, and that the recent trend of Japanese youths becoming more "inward-looking" threatens to undermine Japan's competitiveness in the international community. The government has advocated introducing 300,000 Japanese students into international exchange programs by 2020.
Furthermore, the ministry plans to boost exchanges among universities in Japan, China and South Korea through credit transfers and joint diplomas, allocating about 2 billion yen for the "Campus Asia initiative" in its budget requests for next fiscal year.
Behind the trend of fewer students venturing abroad to study lies the widespread use of the Internet in getting overseas information easily and students' concerns that studying abroad could delay their job hunting activities.
"Some may say our new program is offering too much for students, but students won't be motivated to go abroad and study unless given financial assistance and credit transfers are provided as they face a tight job market," said an official with the ministry.
"Japanese youths lack ambition nowadays. We want to lift their spirits," said Senior Vice Minister of Education Masaharu Nakagawa.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20100906p2a00m0na014000c.html
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is launching what it has dubbed a "short visit" program from next fiscal year to boost the number of students who study abroad. It plans to dispatch 7,000 students overseas for a short stay in fiscal 2011. The ministry will include 1.7 billion yen for the program in its budget requests for next fiscal year.
According to the ministry, the number of university students studying abroad had been on the increase until around 1999, but has since declined to an annual 80,000 or so as students are said to be getting more "inward-looking." Even the United States, which is the most popular destination for Japanese students, hosted 30 percent fewer students from Japan in 2008 than in 2004.
While the ministry currently provides a one-year or longer study abroad program, it receives only three times the number of applications as seats available. In a bid to encourage more students to go abroad, the ministry will solicit students who are willing to stay overseas for a period of two weeks to three months so they can get a taste of what an overseas education is like.
Undergraduate students at certain universities -- which have student exchange programs with counterparts overseas and will offer students credits even for a short stay abroad -- will be given financial assistance of up to 80,000 yen for their living costs abroad per month and up to 80,000 yen for one-way airfares.
The ministry's latest white paper on science and technology has pointed out that researchers with overseas experience are more productive, conducting international joint research and coauthoring papers with foreign counterparts, and that the recent trend of Japanese youths becoming more "inward-looking" threatens to undermine Japan's competitiveness in the international community. The government has advocated introducing 300,000 Japanese students into international exchange programs by 2020.
Furthermore, the ministry plans to boost exchanges among universities in Japan, China and South Korea through credit transfers and joint diplomas, allocating about 2 billion yen for the "Campus Asia initiative" in its budget requests for next fiscal year.
Behind the trend of fewer students venturing abroad to study lies the widespread use of the Internet in getting overseas information easily and students' concerns that studying abroad could delay their job hunting activities.
"Some may say our new program is offering too much for students, but students won't be motivated to go abroad and study unless given financial assistance and credit transfers are provided as they face a tight job market," said an official with the ministry.
"Japanese youths lack ambition nowadays. We want to lift their spirits," said Senior Vice Minister of Education Masaharu Nakagawa.
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/national/news/20100906p2a00m0na014000c.html
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Saving Japan's universities
The consensus says Japanese university students are lazy and apathetic. Unfavorable comparisons are made with Chinese studying here. Yet those same students at their annual autumn festivals can show an enthusiasm, professionalism and attention to detail superior to anything at a Western university, or a Chinese university for that matter.
When I try to find the reason for all this effort, the main reply is mokuteki tassei kan, or the feeling of having achieved something.
This, I suggest, is the key problem with the education system here. It does not provide that feeling of achievement, for several reasons. One is that Japan by nature is not a very intellectual society. The value of abstract learning for its own sake is weakly realized. In the science or engineering departments, students apply themselves. The problems are mainly in the liberal arts faculties.
Japan's groupism is another problem. Failing weak or lazy students and having them expelled from the allegedly warm and cozy bosom of the university group is almost impossible, both practically and psychologically.
Teachers, too, try to retain their group identity by playing up to students. The result is a version of the old communist regime joke that said the workers pretended to work and the bosses pretended to pay them. Here in Japan, often it is that teachers pretend to teach and students pretend to study.
Some mid-ranking universities show more responsibility. But at elite universities, horror stories of student and teacher negligence abound. Both assume that status imparts impunity. Some ex-students boast how they graduated without doing a day of serious study.
A key theme in the several Ministry of Education committees I attended during the 1990s was that universities should grade students strictly. But how can you force teachers to provide strict grades in the first place? In any case the worst that can happen to students with poor grades is to have them repeat a year — something most universities prefer to avoid.
I never managed to get a serious answer to these points. The bureaucrats were part of the same conspiracy, I concluded.
Employers are equally guilty. Most do their recruiting well before final grades are available. Many just assume graduates from elite universities are superior. In a top businessman's committee back in those days — when education reform was a popular topic — I recall a well-known industry captain saying how poor grades could prove the student had the sense not to waste time on irrelevant university study.
Today things could be getting even worse. For as student numbers decline, and university numbers increase, standards will tend to fall even more as more universities compete for fewer students.
But all is not lost. Parents are increasingly reluctant to pay out large sums to irresponsible universities so their children can enjoy four years of "leisure-land" existence as it is often called. They are turning to the mid-ranking universities that make efforts to improve. Some more enlightened enterprises also now seek graduates from those universities.
But how do you prove that you have improved? The current fad is an emphasis on English teaching, with the TOEFL or TOEIC results for English exams used as objective standards. An experimental university with which I am involved has done quite well on that basis. For many firms, English ability is now useful in employment. But should those English exams be the main standard of student and teaching excellence?
Ultimately it comes back to inserting proper motivation into the classroom. Currently the demand is for teachers to make their classes more "enjoyable." So teachers have to become like song and dance artists?
There is only one sensible answer — provide clear, across-the-board incentives that give students the sense of achievement they crave. Tests and exams are of little use when the aim of most teachers and universities is simply to hand out pass marks and get rid of repeaters.
Some years back I tried to promote a scheme called "provisional entry." Students who just failed to pass university entrance tests could be accepted for one year and confirmed as regular students if their first-year results were good. Even though the scheme was endorsed by the 1999 national conference on education reform, few have shown interest. Yet the one university that has tried the scheme has found that almost all the provisional students do as well as or better than the first-year regular students.
Japan's closed academic world needs to discover what almost every Western university knows — that if the carrot of self-improvement is not enough to make people study then it has to be the whip of failure. This means failure to graduate, and failure to find a good job. That kind of incentive does wonders to clarify the mind and spur motivation. Ideally every student in Japan should be "provisional," and not just for one year.
Such a scheme would also provide the badly needed motivation to encourage less academically minded school graduates to seek technical education rather than waste time at universities.
As for the current emphasis on English to prove academic excellence, obviously it does no harm. But with bad teachers — either those retreaded high school teachers unable to speak English properly or the grammar-obsessed Ph.D.s for example — often the teaching simply reinforces the bad English being taught in middle and high schools. Far better to have the language taught intensively as part of a double degree — economics and English, for example — to students who choose it and really want to use it in their future careers. Here the motivation factor is guaranteed. Meanwhile, other languages, Chinese especially, could also be taught on the same double degree basis. Japan does not have to survive on English alone.
Gregory Clark is formerly president of Tama University and vice president of Akita International University. A Japanese translation of this article will appear on www.gregoryclark.net. His book "Naze Nihon no Kyoiku wa kawaranai no desuka?" was published by Toyo Keizai in 2003.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20100817gc.html
When I try to find the reason for all this effort, the main reply is mokuteki tassei kan, or the feeling of having achieved something.
This, I suggest, is the key problem with the education system here. It does not provide that feeling of achievement, for several reasons. One is that Japan by nature is not a very intellectual society. The value of abstract learning for its own sake is weakly realized. In the science or engineering departments, students apply themselves. The problems are mainly in the liberal arts faculties.
Japan's groupism is another problem. Failing weak or lazy students and having them expelled from the allegedly warm and cozy bosom of the university group is almost impossible, both practically and psychologically.
Teachers, too, try to retain their group identity by playing up to students. The result is a version of the old communist regime joke that said the workers pretended to work and the bosses pretended to pay them. Here in Japan, often it is that teachers pretend to teach and students pretend to study.
Some mid-ranking universities show more responsibility. But at elite universities, horror stories of student and teacher negligence abound. Both assume that status imparts impunity. Some ex-students boast how they graduated without doing a day of serious study.
A key theme in the several Ministry of Education committees I attended during the 1990s was that universities should grade students strictly. But how can you force teachers to provide strict grades in the first place? In any case the worst that can happen to students with poor grades is to have them repeat a year — something most universities prefer to avoid.
I never managed to get a serious answer to these points. The bureaucrats were part of the same conspiracy, I concluded.
Employers are equally guilty. Most do their recruiting well before final grades are available. Many just assume graduates from elite universities are superior. In a top businessman's committee back in those days — when education reform was a popular topic — I recall a well-known industry captain saying how poor grades could prove the student had the sense not to waste time on irrelevant university study.
Today things could be getting even worse. For as student numbers decline, and university numbers increase, standards will tend to fall even more as more universities compete for fewer students.
But all is not lost. Parents are increasingly reluctant to pay out large sums to irresponsible universities so their children can enjoy four years of "leisure-land" existence as it is often called. They are turning to the mid-ranking universities that make efforts to improve. Some more enlightened enterprises also now seek graduates from those universities.
But how do you prove that you have improved? The current fad is an emphasis on English teaching, with the TOEFL or TOEIC results for English exams used as objective standards. An experimental university with which I am involved has done quite well on that basis. For many firms, English ability is now useful in employment. But should those English exams be the main standard of student and teaching excellence?
Ultimately it comes back to inserting proper motivation into the classroom. Currently the demand is for teachers to make their classes more "enjoyable." So teachers have to become like song and dance artists?
There is only one sensible answer — provide clear, across-the-board incentives that give students the sense of achievement they crave. Tests and exams are of little use when the aim of most teachers and universities is simply to hand out pass marks and get rid of repeaters.
Some years back I tried to promote a scheme called "provisional entry." Students who just failed to pass university entrance tests could be accepted for one year and confirmed as regular students if their first-year results were good. Even though the scheme was endorsed by the 1999 national conference on education reform, few have shown interest. Yet the one university that has tried the scheme has found that almost all the provisional students do as well as or better than the first-year regular students.
Japan's closed academic world needs to discover what almost every Western university knows — that if the carrot of self-improvement is not enough to make people study then it has to be the whip of failure. This means failure to graduate, and failure to find a good job. That kind of incentive does wonders to clarify the mind and spur motivation. Ideally every student in Japan should be "provisional," and not just for one year.
Such a scheme would also provide the badly needed motivation to encourage less academically minded school graduates to seek technical education rather than waste time at universities.
As for the current emphasis on English to prove academic excellence, obviously it does no harm. But with bad teachers — either those retreaded high school teachers unable to speak English properly or the grammar-obsessed Ph.D.s for example — often the teaching simply reinforces the bad English being taught in middle and high schools. Far better to have the language taught intensively as part of a double degree — economics and English, for example — to students who choose it and really want to use it in their future careers. Here the motivation factor is guaranteed. Meanwhile, other languages, Chinese especially, could also be taught on the same double degree basis. Japan does not have to survive on English alone.
Gregory Clark is formerly president of Tama University and vice president of Akita International University. A Japanese translation of this article will appear on www.gregoryclark.net. His book "Naze Nihon no Kyoiku wa kawaranai no desuka?" was published by Toyo Keizai in 2003.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20100817gc.html
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Foreign Caregivers’ Language Exam Triggers Debate
TOKYO, Aug 11, 2010 (IPS) - Wahyudin dreams of becoming a full-fledged caregiver, if not a certified nurse, in Japan. But the Indonesian worker must first pass the required Japanese-language national certification examination, which is far from easy.
Until then the 29-year-old Wahyudin, a registered nurse in his home country, will remain a caregiver trainee in an elderly-care facility in Yamada city in western Tokushima prefecture, where he has worked since arriving in Japan two years ago.
"It's a long shot but there is no other way I can push my career forward and build a stable future (unless I pass the test)," Wahyudin, who uses one name, says of the examination.
Passing it would give him the professional caregiver status that would allow him to be hired by any hospital or nursing home in Japan. He can also expect higher compensation packages.
The language examination is designed to ensure integration into Japanese society and meet professional standards, but few foreigners manage to pass it. Now, those who work with the elderly in one of the world’s fastest ageing societies say it is time to take a second look at this requirement, given Japan’s rapidly growing need for caregivers, many of whom come from overseas.
"Expecting foreign caregivers and nurses to pass the difficult examination in Japanese is unfair and smacks of discrimination," said Tsutomu Fukuma, spokesman for the Japanese Council of Senior Citizens Welfare Service, a leading nursing care provider.
"The system has disappointed them and many are giving up on staying in Japan, which is not what we want," he says.
As it is, the Health and Welfare Ministry says the number of Japanese caregivers, most of them middle-aged, is declining. There were 350,000 workers in the healthcare system in 2009, down from 400,000 three years ago. Younger Japanese are not entering the sector.
At the same time, Japan has 13 million people aged over 75, or 10 percent of its population of 127 million. In 2025, that age group is projected to grow to 22 million people -- and the government predicts that the country will need more than two million caregivers by then.
This is why Japan has been turning to foreign caregivers, but they are not finding it easy to stay for too long in the country. At present, foreign nurses and caregivers are allowed to work in Japan for a maximum of three and four years, respectively. During this period, they must study Japanese and pass the certifying examination that they can take only once.
Because Japan is officially a closed labour market to foreigners, it has different agreements with countries that allow a certain number of ‘trainees’ each year to come work for specified periods of time.
Wahyudin, for instance, came under an economic partnership agreement (EPA) signed between Japan and Indonesia in 2008. A similar pact was signed with the Philippines, another major provider of caregivers here, in 2006.
There are 570 Indonesians and 310 Filipinos working in nursing or elder homes in Japan. A total of 254 have taken the nursing examination, but only three – two Indonesians and one Filipino – have passed and acquired full-time employment status.
Among others, caregivers and nurses seeking professional certification in Japan are lobbying the government to allow foreign examinees to use dictionaries during the test to help them with unfamiliar technical terms and ‘Kanji’ or Chinese characters, one of three scripts used in the Japanese language, or Nihongo.
But beyond the examination itself, caregivers rue the limited time they have to study the language.
"It’s really hard for us to reach the level of language facility needed to successfully sit for the exam," says Wahyudin, who has just an hour or so a day to review his Nihongo owing to his busy work schedule. He is getting formal language training, but he says this is far from adequate even with the six- month government-subsidised language course.
The situation of the elderly in Japan also reflects changing norms that have seen more young adults living away from their ageing parents. In fact, the number of Japanese who are over 65 years old, living alone and with no one to look after them, numbered more than 4.6 million as of June 2009.
To many, this highlights even more the need for more caregivers, but not everyone agrees.
Prof Keiko Higuchi, a member of the government panel of welfare advisors, says Japan’s caregiving system instead encourage the elderly to lead more independent lives. "I am not against accepting foreign caregivers or nurses. But before we start opening the doors (to them), Japan must ensure that its nursing care for the elderly continues to focus on helping them to help themselves," she explains.
Yukiko Okuma, a well-known author on nursing care for the elderly, sees as quick fixes Japan’s EPAs with Indonesia and the Philippines. "The EPA with Indonesia is a quick remedy for the labour shortage we face in the welfare sector. As a result we now have a system which faces the risk of lowering Japan’s nursing standards to accommodate more Asian nationals who are themselves not treated fairly under the scheme," she points out.
Okuma adds that today’s situation is also a product of a society where women, especially wives and daughters-in-law, have traditionally taken care of ageing parents, leading to "a poorly recognised and underfinanced welfare system" in Japan.
"Japan’s welfare for the elderly must be viewed as a national priority, where workers are treated well by giving them good salaries, paid vacations and other employment benefits, whether they are Japanese or Asians," she says.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52451
Until then the 29-year-old Wahyudin, a registered nurse in his home country, will remain a caregiver trainee in an elderly-care facility in Yamada city in western Tokushima prefecture, where he has worked since arriving in Japan two years ago.
"It's a long shot but there is no other way I can push my career forward and build a stable future (unless I pass the test)," Wahyudin, who uses one name, says of the examination.
Passing it would give him the professional caregiver status that would allow him to be hired by any hospital or nursing home in Japan. He can also expect higher compensation packages.
The language examination is designed to ensure integration into Japanese society and meet professional standards, but few foreigners manage to pass it. Now, those who work with the elderly in one of the world’s fastest ageing societies say it is time to take a second look at this requirement, given Japan’s rapidly growing need for caregivers, many of whom come from overseas.
"Expecting foreign caregivers and nurses to pass the difficult examination in Japanese is unfair and smacks of discrimination," said Tsutomu Fukuma, spokesman for the Japanese Council of Senior Citizens Welfare Service, a leading nursing care provider.
"The system has disappointed them and many are giving up on staying in Japan, which is not what we want," he says.
As it is, the Health and Welfare Ministry says the number of Japanese caregivers, most of them middle-aged, is declining. There were 350,000 workers in the healthcare system in 2009, down from 400,000 three years ago. Younger Japanese are not entering the sector.
At the same time, Japan has 13 million people aged over 75, or 10 percent of its population of 127 million. In 2025, that age group is projected to grow to 22 million people -- and the government predicts that the country will need more than two million caregivers by then.
This is why Japan has been turning to foreign caregivers, but they are not finding it easy to stay for too long in the country. At present, foreign nurses and caregivers are allowed to work in Japan for a maximum of three and four years, respectively. During this period, they must study Japanese and pass the certifying examination that they can take only once.
Because Japan is officially a closed labour market to foreigners, it has different agreements with countries that allow a certain number of ‘trainees’ each year to come work for specified periods of time.
Wahyudin, for instance, came under an economic partnership agreement (EPA) signed between Japan and Indonesia in 2008. A similar pact was signed with the Philippines, another major provider of caregivers here, in 2006.
There are 570 Indonesians and 310 Filipinos working in nursing or elder homes in Japan. A total of 254 have taken the nursing examination, but only three – two Indonesians and one Filipino – have passed and acquired full-time employment status.
Among others, caregivers and nurses seeking professional certification in Japan are lobbying the government to allow foreign examinees to use dictionaries during the test to help them with unfamiliar technical terms and ‘Kanji’ or Chinese characters, one of three scripts used in the Japanese language, or Nihongo.
But beyond the examination itself, caregivers rue the limited time they have to study the language.
"It’s really hard for us to reach the level of language facility needed to successfully sit for the exam," says Wahyudin, who has just an hour or so a day to review his Nihongo owing to his busy work schedule. He is getting formal language training, but he says this is far from adequate even with the six- month government-subsidised language course.
The situation of the elderly in Japan also reflects changing norms that have seen more young adults living away from their ageing parents. In fact, the number of Japanese who are over 65 years old, living alone and with no one to look after them, numbered more than 4.6 million as of June 2009.
To many, this highlights even more the need for more caregivers, but not everyone agrees.
Prof Keiko Higuchi, a member of the government panel of welfare advisors, says Japan’s caregiving system instead encourage the elderly to lead more independent lives. "I am not against accepting foreign caregivers or nurses. But before we start opening the doors (to them), Japan must ensure that its nursing care for the elderly continues to focus on helping them to help themselves," she explains.
Yukiko Okuma, a well-known author on nursing care for the elderly, sees as quick fixes Japan’s EPAs with Indonesia and the Philippines. "The EPA with Indonesia is a quick remedy for the labour shortage we face in the welfare sector. As a result we now have a system which faces the risk of lowering Japan’s nursing standards to accommodate more Asian nationals who are themselves not treated fairly under the scheme," she points out.
Okuma adds that today’s situation is also a product of a society where women, especially wives and daughters-in-law, have traditionally taken care of ageing parents, leading to "a poorly recognised and underfinanced welfare system" in Japan.
"Japan’s welfare for the elderly must be viewed as a national priority, where workers are treated well by giving them good salaries, paid vacations and other employment benefits, whether they are Japanese or Asians," she says.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52451
Thursday, July 22, 2010
14 officials to study in Japan under JDS
A total of 14 Bangladeshi young government officials will leave for Japan next month to study for two years under Japan Development Scholarship (JDS), says a press release.
They will study in Japan for two years to obtain Master's degrees in various fields.
A send-off ceremony for the JDS fellows was held on Monday at the Japanese Ambassador's residence.
Japanese ambassador Tamotsu Shinotsuka encouraged JDS fellows to keep in mind that both Bangladeshi and Japanese people expect a great deal from them for the development of their own country through making the best use of knowledge and experience that will be acquired in Japan.
The formal title of the Scholarship is "The Japanese Grant Aid for Human Resource Development Scholarship (JDS)." It was established by the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh with the assistance of the Government of Japan in the year 2001.
JDS will contribute to enhancing the knowledge and skills of young Bangladeshi people so that they can play leading roles in the development of Bangladesh after completion of their studies.
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=147690
They will study in Japan for two years to obtain Master's degrees in various fields.
A send-off ceremony for the JDS fellows was held on Monday at the Japanese Ambassador's residence.
Japanese ambassador Tamotsu Shinotsuka encouraged JDS fellows to keep in mind that both Bangladeshi and Japanese people expect a great deal from them for the development of their own country through making the best use of knowledge and experience that will be acquired in Japan.
The formal title of the Scholarship is "The Japanese Grant Aid for Human Resource Development Scholarship (JDS)." It was established by the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh with the assistance of the Government of Japan in the year 2001.
JDS will contribute to enhancing the knowledge and skills of young Bangladeshi people so that they can play leading roles in the development of Bangladesh after completion of their studies.
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=147690
Friday, July 16, 2010
Vietnamese students fill niche at Japanese firms
Vietnam has been getting a lot of attention from Japanese companies thanks to its rising middle class and plans for large-scale development projects, such as nuclear power plants and railway systems. More and more Japanese companies are interested in hiring Vietnamese employees to do businesses in the country.
For such firms, there are potential employees already living in Japan, as an increasing number of students from Vietnam are studying here, helping to create a bridge between the two countries.
Last month, Tran Minh Hue, a postgraduate student at Kobe University, traveled all the way to Tokyo to attend a job event aimed exclusively at Vietnamese wanting to work for Japanese companies after completing their education this academic year.
The 28-year-old joined 15 other students who traveled to Shinagawa Ward from as far away as Fukushima and Kita-Kyushu. The event was unlike regular job fairs, where students visit booths for companies they are interested in. Instead, the Vietnamese sat at several desks and talked about themselves whenever they were approached by corporate recruiters.
"I'm a logical thinker and I'm comfortable speaking in front of others," Hue said in fluent Japanese during her presentation. She also discussed the variety of volunteer activities in which she has been engaged during her two years in Japan.
At the job event, the 16 students were brought together with four companies, with each interview session lasting 20 minutes.
Nguyen Manh Hung, a postgraduate student at Fukui University, said he wants to work in Japan "to take advantage of the cutting-edge knowledge I've acquired here." In the future, the 26-year-old added, "I hope to find a new business opportunity in my country and make it into something big."
The event was the second organized by G.A. Consultants Co. in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo. The first one took place in April and attracted 15 students. Since its establishment in 1995, the employment agency has helped bring together graduates of Vietnamese universities and Japanese companies. In 2008, it started a business focusing on the increasing number of Vietnamese studying in Japan.
The number of students from the country reached 3,199 last year, double the number recorded in 2004, according to the Japan Student Services Organization. Although they accounted for just 2.4 percent of the overall foreign student body of nearly 133,000, they have now formed the fourth-largest group after China, South Korea and Taiwan.
The two events attracted a total of nine companies--from information technology to construction and real estate--most of which are already doing businesses in Vietnam or are keen to do so.
At the June event, Yoshinori Tamaki, president of Saitama Prefecture-based car dealer GlobanNet Co., was looking for his firm's first foreign employee. "I'd like to start up a business there, probably beginning with a restaurant."
The president has spent a lot of time visiting Vietnam, during which time he has discovered attractive factors such as its growing population and political stability. "I've also found the people are hard-working and really smart," he added.
Osaka-based Fine Co. also was looking for a candidate to manage an office it plans to open in Vietnam next year. The diet supplement manufacturer has been inspired by the country's rich natural resources.
"We'd like to develop ingredients for our products there," Executive Vice President Nobutsuna Sasaki said. "In China, ingredients have been getting more and more expensive recently."
Hung started his job-hunting in February. One difficulty he is facing is "finding the information I want among so many companies in Japan," such as which ones want to hire foreign students.
Vietnamese students also tend to struggle with a lack of Japanese-language skills and the peculiar job-hunting practices in Japan--such as starting efforts more than a year before graduation--according to Dang Quang Duy, vice president of the Vietnamese Youths and Students Association in Japan (VYSA) and a postgraduate student at Tokyo Institute of Technology.
VYSA, formed in 2001, organizes job fairs and briefing sessions on how to find work, while also posting employment opportunities on its Web site.
"Most Vietnamese students in Japan want to work here for a while before going back home," said the 26-year-old, who has received a job offer from a major Japanese company.
Yet the reality is that many of them have had to go home because they cannot find a job here--a situation that Masaaki Ando, G.A.'s general manager, describes as a "shame" for the country.
To help the two events bring about as high "matching rates" as possible, G.A. screened its applicants, narrowing them down to 31--based on factors such as their Japanese-language skills and personalities--and taught them how to make proper presentations during interviews.
More than half of the interviewees advanced to the next round of screening, and some from the first event eventually received a job offer.
"Although they're brilliant and willing to work as a bridge between [Vietnam and] Japan, many of them haven't been given a chance to do so," he said. "I'd really like [more Japanese firms] to give them a chance."
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/20100715TDY15T02.htm
For such firms, there are potential employees already living in Japan, as an increasing number of students from Vietnam are studying here, helping to create a bridge between the two countries.
Last month, Tran Minh Hue, a postgraduate student at Kobe University, traveled all the way to Tokyo to attend a job event aimed exclusively at Vietnamese wanting to work for Japanese companies after completing their education this academic year.
The 28-year-old joined 15 other students who traveled to Shinagawa Ward from as far away as Fukushima and Kita-Kyushu. The event was unlike regular job fairs, where students visit booths for companies they are interested in. Instead, the Vietnamese sat at several desks and talked about themselves whenever they were approached by corporate recruiters.
"I'm a logical thinker and I'm comfortable speaking in front of others," Hue said in fluent Japanese during her presentation. She also discussed the variety of volunteer activities in which she has been engaged during her two years in Japan.
At the job event, the 16 students were brought together with four companies, with each interview session lasting 20 minutes.
Nguyen Manh Hung, a postgraduate student at Fukui University, said he wants to work in Japan "to take advantage of the cutting-edge knowledge I've acquired here." In the future, the 26-year-old added, "I hope to find a new business opportunity in my country and make it into something big."
The event was the second organized by G.A. Consultants Co. in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo. The first one took place in April and attracted 15 students. Since its establishment in 1995, the employment agency has helped bring together graduates of Vietnamese universities and Japanese companies. In 2008, it started a business focusing on the increasing number of Vietnamese studying in Japan.
The number of students from the country reached 3,199 last year, double the number recorded in 2004, according to the Japan Student Services Organization. Although they accounted for just 2.4 percent of the overall foreign student body of nearly 133,000, they have now formed the fourth-largest group after China, South Korea and Taiwan.
The two events attracted a total of nine companies--from information technology to construction and real estate--most of which are already doing businesses in Vietnam or are keen to do so.
At the June event, Yoshinori Tamaki, president of Saitama Prefecture-based car dealer GlobanNet Co., was looking for his firm's first foreign employee. "I'd like to start up a business there, probably beginning with a restaurant."
The president has spent a lot of time visiting Vietnam, during which time he has discovered attractive factors such as its growing population and political stability. "I've also found the people are hard-working and really smart," he added.
Osaka-based Fine Co. also was looking for a candidate to manage an office it plans to open in Vietnam next year. The diet supplement manufacturer has been inspired by the country's rich natural resources.
"We'd like to develop ingredients for our products there," Executive Vice President Nobutsuna Sasaki said. "In China, ingredients have been getting more and more expensive recently."
Hung started his job-hunting in February. One difficulty he is facing is "finding the information I want among so many companies in Japan," such as which ones want to hire foreign students.
Vietnamese students also tend to struggle with a lack of Japanese-language skills and the peculiar job-hunting practices in Japan--such as starting efforts more than a year before graduation--according to Dang Quang Duy, vice president of the Vietnamese Youths and Students Association in Japan (VYSA) and a postgraduate student at Tokyo Institute of Technology.
VYSA, formed in 2001, organizes job fairs and briefing sessions on how to find work, while also posting employment opportunities on its Web site.
"Most Vietnamese students in Japan want to work here for a while before going back home," said the 26-year-old, who has received a job offer from a major Japanese company.
Yet the reality is that many of them have had to go home because they cannot find a job here--a situation that Masaaki Ando, G.A.'s general manager, describes as a "shame" for the country.
To help the two events bring about as high "matching rates" as possible, G.A. screened its applicants, narrowing them down to 31--based on factors such as their Japanese-language skills and personalities--and taught them how to make proper presentations during interviews.
More than half of the interviewees advanced to the next round of screening, and some from the first event eventually received a job offer.
"Although they're brilliant and willing to work as a bridge between [Vietnam and] Japan, many of them haven't been given a chance to do so," he said. "I'd really like [more Japanese firms] to give them a chance."
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/language/20100715TDY15T02.htm
Japanese seen as 'critical' in U.S. language program
Thirty students from the U.S. traveled to Kyoto last month under a new U.S. government initiative to boost the country’s number of Japanese speakers, to make the country more competitive globally.
The student trip was sponsored by the U.S. State Department as part of its Critical Language Scholarship Program, known as CLS, a government initiative aimed at improving the foreign language skills of U.S. citizens.
The two-month program gives undergraduate and graduate students from across the country the opportunity to study Japanese in intensive, full-immersion environments at Doshisha University and Kyoto University.
Japanese was added to the CLS program for the first time this year since it started in 2006 under the administration of former President George W Bush, in line with the launch of the National Security Language Initiative, a scheme to increase the study of languages considered vital to U.S. national security.
In the program’s first years, scholarships were offered for Arabic, Pashtun, Korean and other languages that are rarely studied in the United States but are considered to be of strategic importance by the U.S. military and intelligence communities.
But the program has gradually expanded to include languages that are more broadly relevant to U.S. global interests, including trade and finance, and Japanese was chosen this year.
Susan Schmidt, an expert on Japanese language acquisition at the Association of Teachers of Japanese, believes that including Japanese in this year’s program reflects the changing attitudes of U.S. policymakers about what makes a language “critical.”
“I think what happened probably is that in the State Department, it was felt that that definition of critical, as in important for national security or national purposes, that that definition should be expanded a little bit, beyond the strictly military context,” Schmidt said.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Academic Programs Alina Romanowski said that CLS selects “challenging, difficult languages in places where we know there’s economic opportunity, we have long-term bilateral security interests and where to be proficient in that language takes time.”
The program comes at a time that some describe as a fraught period in Japan-U.S. relations, when the outlook of bilateral ties has grown uncertain due to a change in Japan’s political leadership and a dispute over the fate of a U.S. Marine base in Okinawa.
The decision to include Japanese in the CLS program, however, was made well before the current tensions began, Romanowski noted. “It’s a very important relationship. . . . It made sense that we would end up including Japanese,” she said.
In fact, in its decision to add Japanese to the CLS program, the State Department seems to be riding a growing wave of interest in the study of Japanese within the U.S.
The number of American students studying Japanese has more than doubled over the last two decades and continues to increase steadily, according to a 2006 report on foreign language study in the U.S. conducted every four years by the Modern Language Association.
Schmidt believes this interest has been primarily driven by student interest in Japanese cultural exports, noting that ” ‘manga’ cartoons and animated films and the video games are a fairly big motivation for students.”
Once their interest has been sparked, Schmidt said, these students increasingly put their Japanese to use in their studies.
“A lot of students in the sciences now are interested in learning Japanese and studying in Japan,” she said.
Schmidt’s assessment was confirmed at an orientation session for the CLS program held in Washington in early June, where participants said that although Japanese culture was what initially interested them in the language, they see it as an important tool for their future, whether in international business, diplomacy or the sciences.
“Before the large ‘anime’ boom around the early 2000s, I had never even heard of Japan,” said Tiarra Beaver, a 19-year-old student at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, who now hopes to work with Japanese immigrants as they adjust to life in the U.S.
While not discounting the attraction of Japanese culture, Ryan Seebruck, a 27-year-old graduate student at the University of Arizona, sees the Japanese language as “critical” for a more pragmatic reason.
“Japan will undoubtedly remain a top economic power for a long time,” Seebruck said.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/japanese-seen-as-critical-in-us-language-program
The student trip was sponsored by the U.S. State Department as part of its Critical Language Scholarship Program, known as CLS, a government initiative aimed at improving the foreign language skills of U.S. citizens.
The two-month program gives undergraduate and graduate students from across the country the opportunity to study Japanese in intensive, full-immersion environments at Doshisha University and Kyoto University.
Japanese was added to the CLS program for the first time this year since it started in 2006 under the administration of former President George W Bush, in line with the launch of the National Security Language Initiative, a scheme to increase the study of languages considered vital to U.S. national security.
In the program’s first years, scholarships were offered for Arabic, Pashtun, Korean and other languages that are rarely studied in the United States but are considered to be of strategic importance by the U.S. military and intelligence communities.
But the program has gradually expanded to include languages that are more broadly relevant to U.S. global interests, including trade and finance, and Japanese was chosen this year.
Susan Schmidt, an expert on Japanese language acquisition at the Association of Teachers of Japanese, believes that including Japanese in this year’s program reflects the changing attitudes of U.S. policymakers about what makes a language “critical.”
“I think what happened probably is that in the State Department, it was felt that that definition of critical, as in important for national security or national purposes, that that definition should be expanded a little bit, beyond the strictly military context,” Schmidt said.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Academic Programs Alina Romanowski said that CLS selects “challenging, difficult languages in places where we know there’s economic opportunity, we have long-term bilateral security interests and where to be proficient in that language takes time.”
The program comes at a time that some describe as a fraught period in Japan-U.S. relations, when the outlook of bilateral ties has grown uncertain due to a change in Japan’s political leadership and a dispute over the fate of a U.S. Marine base in Okinawa.
The decision to include Japanese in the CLS program, however, was made well before the current tensions began, Romanowski noted. “It’s a very important relationship. . . . It made sense that we would end up including Japanese,” she said.
In fact, in its decision to add Japanese to the CLS program, the State Department seems to be riding a growing wave of interest in the study of Japanese within the U.S.
The number of American students studying Japanese has more than doubled over the last two decades and continues to increase steadily, according to a 2006 report on foreign language study in the U.S. conducted every four years by the Modern Language Association.
Schmidt believes this interest has been primarily driven by student interest in Japanese cultural exports, noting that ” ‘manga’ cartoons and animated films and the video games are a fairly big motivation for students.”
Once their interest has been sparked, Schmidt said, these students increasingly put their Japanese to use in their studies.
“A lot of students in the sciences now are interested in learning Japanese and studying in Japan,” she said.
Schmidt’s assessment was confirmed at an orientation session for the CLS program held in Washington in early June, where participants said that although Japanese culture was what initially interested them in the language, they see it as an important tool for their future, whether in international business, diplomacy or the sciences.
“Before the large ‘anime’ boom around the early 2000s, I had never even heard of Japan,” said Tiarra Beaver, a 19-year-old student at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, who now hopes to work with Japanese immigrants as they adjust to life in the U.S.
While not discounting the attraction of Japanese culture, Ryan Seebruck, a 27-year-old graduate student at the University of Arizona, sees the Japanese language as “critical” for a more pragmatic reason.
“Japan will undoubtedly remain a top economic power for a long time,” Seebruck said.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/japanese-seen-as-critical-in-us-language-program
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Firms to boost foreigner hiring
Fast Retailing Co., Lawson Inc. and Rakuten Inc. are planning to boost hiring of foreign nationals by up to 50 percent of their new recruits in fiscal 2011, officials of the companies said Tuesday.
Because they are expanding global operations, especially in emerging markets in Asia, amid shrinking domestic sales, the three companies are accelerating operations to hire Asian graduates in their home countries and those studying at Japanese universities.
The firms hope to promote them to company executives in the future to lead their operations in the Asian markets, the officials said.
Fast Retailing, the operator of the Uniqlo casual clothing chain, said it is planning to hire about 300 foreigners, which would account for about 50 percent of its planned new recruits for the year starting next April.
The company hopes to hire people who can work on its plan to open more shops in China and those who can serve as shop managers in Malaysia and Taiwan, where it plans to open its first outlets.
President Tadashi Yanai said the hiring rate of foreign employees will be increased in fiscal 2012, with a plan for up to two-thirds of 1,000 planned new recruits to be foreigners.
Major convenience store change Lawson is boosting recruitment of foreign students graduating from Japanese universities. It will continue hiring about 20 percent to 30 percent of its new recruits from Asian countries, it said. It has already hired 66 foreign graduates in three years from fiscal 2008, accounting for 20 percent of all the new recruits.
Rakuten, which operates the largest Internet mall in Japan, said it will hire 150 foreigners among 600 new recruits it plans to employ in fiscal 2011.
It has agreed with China's top Internet search engine Baidu Inc. to form a joint venture to launch an online mall in China in the second half of this year and hopes to utilize Chinese engineers to come up with services attracting customers in the Chinese market.
Panasonic Corp. has also been boosting its employment of foreigners.
In fiscal 2011, it plans to increase the number of such employees to 1,100, up by 50 percent from the previous year, the company said.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20100707a1.html
Because they are expanding global operations, especially in emerging markets in Asia, amid shrinking domestic sales, the three companies are accelerating operations to hire Asian graduates in their home countries and those studying at Japanese universities.
The firms hope to promote them to company executives in the future to lead their operations in the Asian markets, the officials said.
Fast Retailing, the operator of the Uniqlo casual clothing chain, said it is planning to hire about 300 foreigners, which would account for about 50 percent of its planned new recruits for the year starting next April.
The company hopes to hire people who can work on its plan to open more shops in China and those who can serve as shop managers in Malaysia and Taiwan, where it plans to open its first outlets.
President Tadashi Yanai said the hiring rate of foreign employees will be increased in fiscal 2012, with a plan for up to two-thirds of 1,000 planned new recruits to be foreigners.
Major convenience store change Lawson is boosting recruitment of foreign students graduating from Japanese universities. It will continue hiring about 20 percent to 30 percent of its new recruits from Asian countries, it said. It has already hired 66 foreign graduates in three years from fiscal 2008, accounting for 20 percent of all the new recruits.
Rakuten, which operates the largest Internet mall in Japan, said it will hire 150 foreigners among 600 new recruits it plans to employ in fiscal 2011.
It has agreed with China's top Internet search engine Baidu Inc. to form a joint venture to launch an online mall in China in the second half of this year and hopes to utilize Chinese engineers to come up with services attracting customers in the Chinese market.
Panasonic Corp. has also been boosting its employment of foreigners.
In fiscal 2011, it plans to increase the number of such employees to 1,100, up by 50 percent from the previous year, the company said.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20100707a1.html
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Japan urged to keep program to invite foreign language instructors
A Japan-U.S. panel drawn from government, business and academia called Friday for sustaining a program to invite English and other foreign language instructors to Japan, challenging a Japanese government view, expressed earlier this year, questioning the necessity of the project as part of a review of unnecessary public projects.
The U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange, which is known as CULCON, said in a joint statement issued after its two-day gathering in Washington that investment should be made in education for the Japan-U.S. alliance in the future.
"The investment should range from improving English language education in Japan to stimulating interest in each other's country...sustaining the JET program and fostering public intellectuals through graduate and post-doctoral studies," the statement said. JET stands for the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program.
Minoru Makihara, senior corporate adviser and former chairman of Mitsubishi Corp. and chair of the Japan panel, told a news conference that participants noted the importance of fostering Americans familiar with Japan amid growing interest in China among Americans.
The participants also discussed ways to increase the number of Japanese students studying in the United States and the importance of promoting grass-roots exchanges.
Michael Green, former senior director for Asian affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, said, "The story of popular views of Americans and Japanese towards each other is very positive," despite difficulties over the base row in Okinawa.
The bilateral conference was set up in 1961 in a joint statement of former Japanese Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda and U.S. President John F. Kennedy. This year marked the 24th biennial meeting.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9G9ESR01&show_article=1
The U.S.-Japan Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange, which is known as CULCON, said in a joint statement issued after its two-day gathering in Washington that investment should be made in education for the Japan-U.S. alliance in the future.
"The investment should range from improving English language education in Japan to stimulating interest in each other's country...sustaining the JET program and fostering public intellectuals through graduate and post-doctoral studies," the statement said. JET stands for the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program.
Minoru Makihara, senior corporate adviser and former chairman of Mitsubishi Corp. and chair of the Japan panel, told a news conference that participants noted the importance of fostering Americans familiar with Japan amid growing interest in China among Americans.
The participants also discussed ways to increase the number of Japanese students studying in the United States and the importance of promoting grass-roots exchanges.
Michael Green, former senior director for Asian affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, said, "The story of popular views of Americans and Japanese towards each other is very positive," despite difficulties over the base row in Okinawa.
The bilateral conference was set up in 1961 in a joint statement of former Japanese Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda and U.S. President John F. Kennedy. This year marked the 24th biennial meeting.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9G9ESR01&show_article=1
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
King of the Hill: Ritsumeikan Aisa Pacific U. scores high in recruiting foreign students, but can it show the way ahead to Japan's struggling colleges
Nestled near the top of a mountain in southern Japan and shrouded in fog, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University would never win a prize for accessibility.
Yet this 10-year-old private college boasts something its rivals in Japan have struggled to achieve: a genuine international campus. Nearly half of its 6,200 students are non-Japanese, the highest ratio of any university in the country. In addition, the institution is on the way to achieving its goal of recruiting half the faculty from abroad. Currently, 44 percent of the professors and academics are from outside the island nation.
"I was amazed when I arrived here first," says the institution's president, Shun Korenaga, who took up his position in January. "Such a campus is quite unique."
Founded by the Kyoto-based Ritsumeikan University to be an international institution, Asia Pacific is officially bilingual—English and Japanese—and has students from nearly 100 countries, mostly from East Asia.
Chinese and Koreans alone account for well over half of the student body. The university has managed to skirt an unspoken rule at many Japanese colleges—that local students would perceive such a large foreign enrollment as a drop in academic quality, and stop coming.
"We don't have that problem," says Mr. Korenaga. "The quality of Chinese and Korean students is very high."
Japan took nearly two decades to achieve a government target of 100,000 foreign students and now wants to triple that figure, amid a declining population and plummeting local student enrollment. Nearly half of the country's private colleges are falling below government-set student quotas.
College administrators have been studying Asia Pacific's success for clues to boost their own non-Japanese enrollment. The answers don't come cheap, or easy.
Asia Pacific has built what it calls the largest student dormitory in Japan, a 1,300-bed facility that responds to a perennial problem here: the scarcity of reliable, inexpensive accommodation that will accept foreigners.
According to Mr. Korenaga, the university has also introduced a scholarship system that waives 30 to 100 percent of the college's almost $14,000 annual tuition for roughly 70 percent of its students. The waiver is paid for by a $43-million endowment from a coalition of 200 companies, created when the university was set up.
Ritsumeikan's network of offices around the region also helps it to recruit students directly from high schools in China, Vietnam, Thailand, and elsewhere. And Asia Pacific's location, which is closer to China and the Korean peninsula than to Tokyo, probably helps, too.
The campus works hard at integrating different nationalities, putting 600 Japanese and foreign freshmen together at its large dorm and hosting one of Japan's biggest annual job fairs in a bid to keep more foreign graduates in the country. It also makes the most of its striking location, overlooking the resort city here.
"I like it here because it's quiet and pretty compared to Shanghai," says Pinkie Wang, a Chinese student studying for a master's degree in international relations. "We can also meet people from other countries, study other cultures, and we can learn English and Japanese, so we graduate with three languages."
Some European students are less enthusiastic.
"There's a reason they put us on the top of a mountain—to force us to interact," quips Pierre Mattisson, a third-year undergraduate exchange student from Sweden.
He says students should think hard about the out-of-the-way location before coming. "I like it, but I chose it because it is just for four months. That allows me to sample Japan, outside Tokyo. If it was four years I wouldn't have chosen it."
Despite its efforts, Asia Pacific still doesn't have what its president calls a regional "brand image" like the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, in South Korea, or the University of Tokyo, though it does have a growing reputation in Asia for the caliber of its teaching. Nor does it have a strong research presence, which is essential for a quality university, Mr. Korenaga admits.
The Ministry of Education, which provides about 13 percent of the university's budget, "wants to divide universities into research and teaching institutions, but I don't agree with that policy," he says.
The institution must also come to grips with a slow, long-term decline in applications from domestic students, the president says. "In Japan, students prefer to go to public universities, to study cheaply, and to study close to home. We break all three rules."
In addition, he says, the gap in abilities among Japanese students is very wide. "Some students want to study at a truly international college, but not everyone. And to survive we will sometimes accept rather low-level students."
Asia Pacific's lessons in internationalization for Japan, if there are any, have become more pressing in recent years. Japanese students are increasingly opting to stay at home; undergraduate enrollment by Japanese citizens in U.S. universities has plunged 52 percent since 2000.
In the same decade, U.S. enrollment of students from China is up 164 percent, and from India, 190 percent. South Korea, with less than half of Japan's population, sends two and a half times as many students to U.S. colleges.
Against such figures, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's pledge to make Japan a leader in the putative community of East Asian nations looks hollow, writes Glen S. Fukushima, chief executive of Airbus Japan, in a recent article in The Japan Times. "Reversing this trend of insularity should be a high priority if the Hatoyama government wishes Japan to play the positive and constructive global role it has the potential to do."
Mr. Korenaga shares that concern. "Japan is swaying between independence and alliances, becoming more closed and introverted." Still, he remains positive that, like the college he runs, the nation will embrace a global outlook and diversity. "We have to select the more internationalized trend," he says. "We don't have a choice."
http://chronicle.com/article/King-of-the-Hill-Ritsumeikan/65739/
Yet this 10-year-old private college boasts something its rivals in Japan have struggled to achieve: a genuine international campus. Nearly half of its 6,200 students are non-Japanese, the highest ratio of any university in the country. In addition, the institution is on the way to achieving its goal of recruiting half the faculty from abroad. Currently, 44 percent of the professors and academics are from outside the island nation.
"I was amazed when I arrived here first," says the institution's president, Shun Korenaga, who took up his position in January. "Such a campus is quite unique."
Founded by the Kyoto-based Ritsumeikan University to be an international institution, Asia Pacific is officially bilingual—English and Japanese—and has students from nearly 100 countries, mostly from East Asia.
Chinese and Koreans alone account for well over half of the student body. The university has managed to skirt an unspoken rule at many Japanese colleges—that local students would perceive such a large foreign enrollment as a drop in academic quality, and stop coming.
"We don't have that problem," says Mr. Korenaga. "The quality of Chinese and Korean students is very high."
Japan took nearly two decades to achieve a government target of 100,000 foreign students and now wants to triple that figure, amid a declining population and plummeting local student enrollment. Nearly half of the country's private colleges are falling below government-set student quotas.
College administrators have been studying Asia Pacific's success for clues to boost their own non-Japanese enrollment. The answers don't come cheap, or easy.
Asia Pacific has built what it calls the largest student dormitory in Japan, a 1,300-bed facility that responds to a perennial problem here: the scarcity of reliable, inexpensive accommodation that will accept foreigners.
According to Mr. Korenaga, the university has also introduced a scholarship system that waives 30 to 100 percent of the college's almost $14,000 annual tuition for roughly 70 percent of its students. The waiver is paid for by a $43-million endowment from a coalition of 200 companies, created when the university was set up.
Ritsumeikan's network of offices around the region also helps it to recruit students directly from high schools in China, Vietnam, Thailand, and elsewhere. And Asia Pacific's location, which is closer to China and the Korean peninsula than to Tokyo, probably helps, too.
The campus works hard at integrating different nationalities, putting 600 Japanese and foreign freshmen together at its large dorm and hosting one of Japan's biggest annual job fairs in a bid to keep more foreign graduates in the country. It also makes the most of its striking location, overlooking the resort city here.
"I like it here because it's quiet and pretty compared to Shanghai," says Pinkie Wang, a Chinese student studying for a master's degree in international relations. "We can also meet people from other countries, study other cultures, and we can learn English and Japanese, so we graduate with three languages."
Some European students are less enthusiastic.
"There's a reason they put us on the top of a mountain—to force us to interact," quips Pierre Mattisson, a third-year undergraduate exchange student from Sweden.
He says students should think hard about the out-of-the-way location before coming. "I like it, but I chose it because it is just for four months. That allows me to sample Japan, outside Tokyo. If it was four years I wouldn't have chosen it."
Despite its efforts, Asia Pacific still doesn't have what its president calls a regional "brand image" like the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, in South Korea, or the University of Tokyo, though it does have a growing reputation in Asia for the caliber of its teaching. Nor does it have a strong research presence, which is essential for a quality university, Mr. Korenaga admits.
The Ministry of Education, which provides about 13 percent of the university's budget, "wants to divide universities into research and teaching institutions, but I don't agree with that policy," he says.
The institution must also come to grips with a slow, long-term decline in applications from domestic students, the president says. "In Japan, students prefer to go to public universities, to study cheaply, and to study close to home. We break all three rules."
In addition, he says, the gap in abilities among Japanese students is very wide. "Some students want to study at a truly international college, but not everyone. And to survive we will sometimes accept rather low-level students."
Asia Pacific's lessons in internationalization for Japan, if there are any, have become more pressing in recent years. Japanese students are increasingly opting to stay at home; undergraduate enrollment by Japanese citizens in U.S. universities has plunged 52 percent since 2000.
In the same decade, U.S. enrollment of students from China is up 164 percent, and from India, 190 percent. South Korea, with less than half of Japan's population, sends two and a half times as many students to U.S. colleges.
Against such figures, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's pledge to make Japan a leader in the putative community of East Asian nations looks hollow, writes Glen S. Fukushima, chief executive of Airbus Japan, in a recent article in The Japan Times. "Reversing this trend of insularity should be a high priority if the Hatoyama government wishes Japan to play the positive and constructive global role it has the potential to do."
Mr. Korenaga shares that concern. "Japan is swaying between independence and alliances, becoming more closed and introverted." Still, he remains positive that, like the college he runs, the nation will embrace a global outlook and diversity. "We have to select the more internationalized trend," he says. "We don't have a choice."
http://chronicle.com/article/King-of-the-Hill-Ritsumeikan/65739/
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Online job service planned / Web site to link soon-to-be university grads and small to midsize firms
The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry and the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry will start a joint online service Tuesday to link job-seeking university students set to graduate next spring and small and midsize companies looking to hire them.
The ministry and the chamber will launch a Web site named Dream Match Project, to be operated by Recruit Co., for the service. It will act as an online meeting place for job-hunting students, who are having extreme difficulty finding jobs amid the current economic slump, and small and midsize employers who cannot spend much money on recruiting and are struggling to hire talented young workers.
The ministry and the chamber aim to eliminate mismatches between companies and potential employees. Student users will be able to input such data as the industries and locations where they desire to work, and the Web site will display small and midsize companies matching those conditions. At students' request, firms will e-mail such information as the schedules of their recruiting sessions.
The service would also help presidents of small and midsize companies meet students in person when the presidents are on business trips to such locations as Tokyo.
The project is designed to help small and midsize companies recruit people newly graduated from universities when the firms start looking for employees after many major companies have finished their recruitment in May.
Students currently have limited means of collecting information about companies in areas they are not originally from.
The government's regional labor bureaus organize recruiting sessions for such companies and students. But students have to pay their own travel and hotel expenses, and it is difficult for students to spend a long time with individual companies.
Students also often complain it is difficult to attend multiple sessions because it takes time to travel from one place to another.
Using the planned Web site, students in Tokyo will be able to obtain information about companies in Sapporo or Fukuoka without incurring travel expenses.
The ministry and the chamber plan to post information of about 2,500 companies with 300 or fewer employees. No registration fee will be charged students or companies.
The Web site will continue to operate through January, and the ministry and the chamber expect 1,000 students to find jobs through it.
According to observers, an increasing number of university students want to join major companies or find stable jobs.
"Students who witnessed how hard job-hunting was last year are likely to expand their target range," a Recruit official said. "By providing more contacts with small and midsize companies, we aim to increase student choices."
As the first step, Recruit plans to recommend the about 600,000 students who use its job-hunting service register with the Web site, to help eliminate mismatches by providing more contacts between students and small and midsize companies.
According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and other sources, only 80 percent of university graduates this spring had secured jobs as of February. This was 6.3 percentage points lower than in the same month in the previous year and the worst figure since 2000.
Recruit said the ratio of job offers to job seekers for university and graduate students who will graduate next spring is 0.47 in major companies with 5,000 or more employees.
However, the ratio in small and midsize companies is 4.41, indicating that the smaller companies are facing a dire labor shortage.
Observers say small and midsize companies are not active in releasing job information, and students tend to shun small and midsize firms, irrespective of the jobs they actually offer.
(May. 17, 2010)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T100516001767.htm
The ministry and the chamber will launch a Web site named Dream Match Project, to be operated by Recruit Co., for the service. It will act as an online meeting place for job-hunting students, who are having extreme difficulty finding jobs amid the current economic slump, and small and midsize employers who cannot spend much money on recruiting and are struggling to hire talented young workers.
The ministry and the chamber aim to eliminate mismatches between companies and potential employees. Student users will be able to input such data as the industries and locations where they desire to work, and the Web site will display small and midsize companies matching those conditions. At students' request, firms will e-mail such information as the schedules of their recruiting sessions.
The service would also help presidents of small and midsize companies meet students in person when the presidents are on business trips to such locations as Tokyo.
The project is designed to help small and midsize companies recruit people newly graduated from universities when the firms start looking for employees after many major companies have finished their recruitment in May.
Students currently have limited means of collecting information about companies in areas they are not originally from.
The government's regional labor bureaus organize recruiting sessions for such companies and students. But students have to pay their own travel and hotel expenses, and it is difficult for students to spend a long time with individual companies.
Students also often complain it is difficult to attend multiple sessions because it takes time to travel from one place to another.
Using the planned Web site, students in Tokyo will be able to obtain information about companies in Sapporo or Fukuoka without incurring travel expenses.
The ministry and the chamber plan to post information of about 2,500 companies with 300 or fewer employees. No registration fee will be charged students or companies.
The Web site will continue to operate through January, and the ministry and the chamber expect 1,000 students to find jobs through it.
According to observers, an increasing number of university students want to join major companies or find stable jobs.
"Students who witnessed how hard job-hunting was last year are likely to expand their target range," a Recruit official said. "By providing more contacts with small and midsize companies, we aim to increase student choices."
As the first step, Recruit plans to recommend the about 600,000 students who use its job-hunting service register with the Web site, to help eliminate mismatches by providing more contacts between students and small and midsize companies.
According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and other sources, only 80 percent of university graduates this spring had secured jobs as of February. This was 6.3 percentage points lower than in the same month in the previous year and the worst figure since 2000.
Recruit said the ratio of job offers to job seekers for university and graduate students who will graduate next spring is 0.47 in major companies with 5,000 or more employees.
However, the ratio in small and midsize companies is 4.41, indicating that the smaller companies are facing a dire labor shortage.
Observers say small and midsize companies are not active in releasing job information, and students tend to shun small and midsize firms, irrespective of the jobs they actually offer.
(May. 17, 2010)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T100516001767.htm
Thursday, April 22, 2010
"CAMPUS Asia" launched: the first Japan-China-Korea Committee for Promoting Exchange and Cooperation among Universities
(1) On April 16, the first Japan-China-Korea Committee for Promoting Exchange and Cooperation among Universities was held in Tokyo attended by committee members from three countries (see Annex). In the Second Trilateral Summit (Beijing, October 10, 2009), Prime Minister Hatoyama had proposed to hold an intergovernmental expert meeting in order to discuss quality-assured exchanges. This committee meeting was held in order to realize his proposal.
Mr. Kan Suzuki, Senior Vice-Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan, sent his sympathy to China, in response to the earthquake disaster that struck Qinghai Province in April 14. He expressed his expectation for fruitful outcome through discussion in the committee, as it is necessary to provide quality assurance framework for international competition and cooperation, and to improve quality-assured exchanges.
This was followed by addresses from three co-chairpersons. Prof. Wu from China said integration process is going on in many fields including education in these three countries, and expressed his willingness to draw plans together for exchange among universities in the future. Prof. Seong from Korea said education is the source of development for human-being, and that today is the starting point for a new age of exchange and cooperation among three countries.
Prof. Anzai from Japan told this is the first time for the government sector there has been no project like this in the government for pursuing exchange with quality assurance, and expressed his expectation that this project will grow involving other Asian countries.
After these remarks, other committee members gave comments expecting further promotion of exchanges and cooperation, as well as enhanced practical procedures for exchange.
Following the discussion, agreements were made among the committee members as described below.
(1) Basic summary
Based on the agreement at the Second Trilateral Summit, developing exchange among universities with quality assurance in Japan, China and Korea is of great importance in implementing human resources development on a scale of the whole East Asian region as the economic activities in this region are becoming more and more interrelated.
(2) Title of the project
Through this project, it is expected that universities in Japan, China and Korea will become places where students and professors from diverse cultural and regional backgrounds will be able to come together, and the merits of each university will be realized. Considering the aforementioned, the title of the project has been determined as follows:
Title in English: “CAMPUS Asia”
(Collective Action for the Mobility Program of University Students)
Title in Japanese:「ã‚ャンパス・アジア」
Titles in Chinese and Korean: (described in the respective languages)
(3) Procedures
This committee meeting will be held in rotation in the three countries in order to steadily realize the project. The second meeting will be held in China in autumn 2010, and the third one will be held in Korea within the first quarter of the year 2011 at the latest, depending on the development of discussion in the working group (to be explained below). The issues to be considered immediately are as follows:
- Mutual understanding on an exchange programs and quality assurance
- Elaborating the guidelines for exchange programs including credit transfers and grading policies.
- Implementing a pilot program and identifying necessary support
- Mutual understanding for university evaluation, publishing a common glossary of quality assurance, information-sharing on university evaluation, visiting each other to find out about evaluation activities.
(4) Working groups
In addition to holding this meeting, a Working Group on the Exchange Program and a Working Group on Quality Assurance will be organized. The members of these WGs will be decided by the government, and for the Working Group on Quality Assurance, the representative in charge of the higher education policy of each of the respective governments and the Quality Assurance Agency Committee of Japan, China and Korea (established in March 2010) may possibly be members.
As closing remarks, Mr. Suzuki, Senior Vice-Minister, expressed appreciation to all of the committee members for their devoted contribution to the lengthy discussions, and stressed the importance of the activities by three counties for human resources development for all of the East Asian region and hoped for continuous cooperation from each of the members, as well as from the governments of China and Korea.
Annex
Japan:
Anzai, Yuichiro*
Chair of the University Council, and Executive Advisor for Academic Affairs of Keio University
Chubachi, Ryouji
Vice-Chair of Sony Corporation
Terashima, Jitsuro
Chair of Japan Research Institute, and President of Tama University
Hamada, Junichi
President of the University of Tokyo
Hirano, Shinichi
President of the National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation
Tokunaga, Tamotsu
Director General of the Higher Education Bureau, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
China:
Wu, Boda*
Director of the China Degree and Graduate Development Center
Wang, Zhanjun
Deputy Director of the Higher Education Evaluation Center
Yang, He
Vice-Chair of Peking University Council
Zhang, Zhaodong
Trustee and Chairman of Founder Group Limited Corporation of Beijing University
Zhang, Xiuqin
Director-General of the Department of International Cooperation and Exchanges, Ministry of Education
Korea:
Seong, Tae-Je*
Secretary General of the Korean Council for University Education
Yun, Jong Yong
Executive Advisor of Samsung Electrics Co. Ltd
Lee, Hyunchong
President of Sangmyung University
Kim, Inn-Se
President of Pusan National University
Kim, Tae Wan
President of Korean Educational Development Institute
Song, Ki Dong
Director General of the International Cooperation Department, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
* Co-chairpersons
http://www.mext.go.jp/english/koutou/1292773.htm
Mr. Kan Suzuki, Senior Vice-Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan, sent his sympathy to China, in response to the earthquake disaster that struck Qinghai Province in April 14. He expressed his expectation for fruitful outcome through discussion in the committee, as it is necessary to provide quality assurance framework for international competition and cooperation, and to improve quality-assured exchanges.
This was followed by addresses from three co-chairpersons. Prof. Wu from China said integration process is going on in many fields including education in these three countries, and expressed his willingness to draw plans together for exchange among universities in the future. Prof. Seong from Korea said education is the source of development for human-being, and that today is the starting point for a new age of exchange and cooperation among three countries.
Prof. Anzai from Japan told this is the first time for the government sector there has been no project like this in the government for pursuing exchange with quality assurance, and expressed his expectation that this project will grow involving other Asian countries.
After these remarks, other committee members gave comments expecting further promotion of exchanges and cooperation, as well as enhanced practical procedures for exchange.
Following the discussion, agreements were made among the committee members as described below.
(1) Basic summary
Based on the agreement at the Second Trilateral Summit, developing exchange among universities with quality assurance in Japan, China and Korea is of great importance in implementing human resources development on a scale of the whole East Asian region as the economic activities in this region are becoming more and more interrelated.
(2) Title of the project
Through this project, it is expected that universities in Japan, China and Korea will become places where students and professors from diverse cultural and regional backgrounds will be able to come together, and the merits of each university will be realized. Considering the aforementioned, the title of the project has been determined as follows:
Title in English: “CAMPUS Asia”
(Collective Action for the Mobility Program of University Students)
Title in Japanese:「ã‚ャンパス・アジア」
Titles in Chinese and Korean: (described in the respective languages)
(3) Procedures
This committee meeting will be held in rotation in the three countries in order to steadily realize the project. The second meeting will be held in China in autumn 2010, and the third one will be held in Korea within the first quarter of the year 2011 at the latest, depending on the development of discussion in the working group (to be explained below). The issues to be considered immediately are as follows:
- Mutual understanding on an exchange programs and quality assurance
- Elaborating the guidelines for exchange programs including credit transfers and grading policies.
- Implementing a pilot program and identifying necessary support
- Mutual understanding for university evaluation, publishing a common glossary of quality assurance, information-sharing on university evaluation, visiting each other to find out about evaluation activities.
(4) Working groups
In addition to holding this meeting, a Working Group on the Exchange Program and a Working Group on Quality Assurance will be organized. The members of these WGs will be decided by the government, and for the Working Group on Quality Assurance, the representative in charge of the higher education policy of each of the respective governments and the Quality Assurance Agency Committee of Japan, China and Korea (established in March 2010) may possibly be members.
As closing remarks, Mr. Suzuki, Senior Vice-Minister, expressed appreciation to all of the committee members for their devoted contribution to the lengthy discussions, and stressed the importance of the activities by three counties for human resources development for all of the East Asian region and hoped for continuous cooperation from each of the members, as well as from the governments of China and Korea.
Annex
Japan:
Anzai, Yuichiro*
Chair of the University Council, and Executive Advisor for Academic Affairs of Keio University
Chubachi, Ryouji
Vice-Chair of Sony Corporation
Terashima, Jitsuro
Chair of Japan Research Institute, and President of Tama University
Hamada, Junichi
President of the University of Tokyo
Hirano, Shinichi
President of the National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation
Tokunaga, Tamotsu
Director General of the Higher Education Bureau, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
China:
Wu, Boda*
Director of the China Degree and Graduate Development Center
Wang, Zhanjun
Deputy Director of the Higher Education Evaluation Center
Yang, He
Vice-Chair of Peking University Council
Zhang, Zhaodong
Trustee and Chairman of Founder Group Limited Corporation of Beijing University
Zhang, Xiuqin
Director-General of the Department of International Cooperation and Exchanges, Ministry of Education
Korea:
Seong, Tae-Je*
Secretary General of the Korean Council for University Education
Yun, Jong Yong
Executive Advisor of Samsung Electrics Co. Ltd
Lee, Hyunchong
President of Sangmyung University
Kim, Inn-Se
President of Pusan National University
Kim, Tae Wan
President of Korean Educational Development Institute
Song, Ki Dong
Director General of the International Cooperation Department, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
* Co-chairpersons
http://www.mext.go.jp/english/koutou/1292773.htm
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Universities in Japan, China, S. Korea to promote exchanges
Government officials and experts in academic circles from Japan, China and South Korea agreed Friday to create a framework of cooperation to help ensure the quality of university education.
Participants in the first such trilateral meeting agreed to hold working-group discussions on student exchange programs and credit transfer systems as well as how to share information about the university establishment standards and grading system in each country.
They also decided to hold the next meeting in Beijing this fall.
Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who proposed promoting university exchanges at a summit meeting with his Chinese and South Korean counterparts last October, stressed the significance of Friday's meeting in Tokyo, saying in a speech during a reception, "Young people play a leading role for the future of Asia, so let's make this 'Campus Asia' program a success."
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9F45OI00&show_article=1
Participants in the first such trilateral meeting agreed to hold working-group discussions on student exchange programs and credit transfer systems as well as how to share information about the university establishment standards and grading system in each country.
They also decided to hold the next meeting in Beijing this fall.
Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who proposed promoting university exchanges at a summit meeting with his Chinese and South Korean counterparts last October, stressed the significance of Friday's meeting in Tokyo, saying in a speech during a reception, "Young people play a leading role for the future of Asia, so let's make this 'Campus Asia' program a success."
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9F45OI00&show_article=1
Meiji University looks to Taiwan for top students
Representatives from Japan's Meiji University visited the College Entrance Examination Center last month to ask about the feasibility of using local proficiency test scores as the basis for admitting Taiwanese students, a spokesman for the center said Friday.
Taiwan was the third stop of the Japanese delegation's trip, which also took them to South Korea and China, aimed at recruiting senior high school students with outstanding academic performances, according to the spokesman.
The university representatives tried to gain a better understanding of whether the proficiency test scores can adequately reflect students' true proficiency and can be used to simplify the Japanese university's admissions process for Taiwanese students, the spokesman said.
The scholastic aptitude test only covers the first two years of Taiwan's high school curriculum and courses. They had hoped that there was a test in Taiwan covering all the courses offered at senior high schools, the spokesman noted.
Japan, Hong Kong and China are all planning to open their universities to recruit top Taiwanese high school graduates.
Approximately 1,000 Taiwanese obtain visas to study in Japan every year, with 60 percent of them studying for a bachelor's degree there, according to statistics compiled by the Ministry of Education.
Japan presently hosts about 120,000 foreign students and launched a program last year that hopes to increase the number of foreign students in Japan to 300,000 by 2020.
Meiji University ranks among the top six universities in Tokyo, trailing only behind Tokyo University, Waseda University and Keio University.
http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aALL&ID=201004160042
Taiwan was the third stop of the Japanese delegation's trip, which also took them to South Korea and China, aimed at recruiting senior high school students with outstanding academic performances, according to the spokesman.
The university representatives tried to gain a better understanding of whether the proficiency test scores can adequately reflect students' true proficiency and can be used to simplify the Japanese university's admissions process for Taiwanese students, the spokesman said.
The scholastic aptitude test only covers the first two years of Taiwan's high school curriculum and courses. They had hoped that there was a test in Taiwan covering all the courses offered at senior high schools, the spokesman noted.
Japan, Hong Kong and China are all planning to open their universities to recruit top Taiwanese high school graduates.
Approximately 1,000 Taiwanese obtain visas to study in Japan every year, with 60 percent of them studying for a bachelor's degree there, according to statistics compiled by the Ministry of Education.
Japan presently hosts about 120,000 foreign students and launched a program last year that hopes to increase the number of foreign students in Japan to 300,000 by 2020.
Meiji University ranks among the top six universities in Tokyo, trailing only behind Tokyo University, Waseda University and Keio University.
http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aALL&ID=201004160042
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Outline of the recent trends and developments in higher education system of Japan
Universities are facing higher expectations from society amid intensified international competition toward fully-fledged knowledge society, and it is indispensable for universities to foster human resources in various areas through ensuring quality assurance of education. Along with the advance of globalization in every field of society and economy, international cooperation and competition are advanced in university education. Cross-border higher education has also grown considerably, and therefore enhancing quality assurance internationally is an essential step toward better cross- border cooperation and exchange between universities.
This paper outlines quality assurance system of higher education in Japan at first. Then it describes international activities of Japan’s higher education institutions and their efforts for internationalization. At the end, it introduces Japan’s movement toward constructing the framework for exchange among universities with proper quality assurance in East-Asian region.
1. Quality assurance of higher education in Japan
The quality assurance framework in Japan has both the advantage of the prior regulations that assure proper quality in advance, and the checking afterwards that constantly assure quality constantly while respecting the diversity of universities. This assures that universities continue to assure quality internally while respecting the principle of independence and autonomy. Three key elements are;
i) Standards for establishing universities
This contains the minimum standards and desirable goals and duties of universities by various regulations. This helps all the stakeholders understand how Japanese universities should be and what they are like. This also makes general public believe that approved institutions are trustworthy organizations.
ii) Establishment- approval system
In order to establish a university or to change academic organizations with regard to changing fields or types of degrees issue, the proposer must submit an application for approval to the Minister of MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology). The Minister commissions the Advisory Council for University Establishment, founded in the Ministry. Peer review by specialists is conducted until first set of enrolled students are to graduate. This assures that application to establish universities meet the Standards for establishing universities, have enough possibility to accomplish what it states, and continue to provide programs.
iii) Quality assurance and accreditation system
All universities in Japan have to receive certified evaluation by one of the accreditation organizations certified by the Minster of MEXT once in 7 years. These organizations evaluate the systems of management, educational and research activities by peer reviewing based on the universities’ self-examination and evaluation. This system confirms whether the universities meet the Standards for establishing universities as well as encourages universities to improve its education and research quality.
The National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation (NIAD-UE) was established to contribute to further development of higher education in Japan. In order to raise the quality of higher education institutions, it acts as one of the accreditation organizations as well as an institution to offer information about Japanese reliable quality assurance system to the world. For example, it produces the Information Package which provides both basic and specific information on the Japanese quality system of higher education in an integrated way including glossary or overview of the system.
In Addition, NIAD-UE strengthens partnerships with overseas quality assurance organizations to provide helpful information about quality assurance and accreditation in the world for Japan’s education institutions, and also to assure and enhance its evaluation activities to an internationally acceptable level. For example, NIAD-UE works together with the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education
(QAA) in the United Kingdom and the Higher Education Evaluation Center of the Ministry of Education (HEEC) in China under the bilateral Memorandum of Understanding. NIAD-UE will also organize a conference among leaders of quality assurance agencies of Japan, China and Republic of Korea.
2. International activities of Japan’s higher education institutions and their efforts for internationalization
i) International activities of Japan’s higher education institutions
Japan’s higher education institutions are playing important role in international cooperation in higher education. Among their activities, one of the most remarkable projects is the Southeast Asia Engineering Education Development Network (SEED-Net) Project, in which Japanese member universities support ASEAN member institutions to produce graduates with master's and doctoral degrees of international standard in the engineering field in order to promote sustainable social and economic development in ASEAN countries.
Also, in the area of engineering, Japanese “Kosen” (college of technology), which has successfully fostered practical and creative engineers through internationally unique five-year engineering education from 15 years old and two-year advanced course, is highly admired both in Japan and internationally; the Kosen also focuses on international activities such as the project in Turkey to develop education and training system of automatic control technology.
In terms of multilateral cooperation, UMAP (University Mobility in Asia and the Pacific) promotes mobility of university students and staff in Asia and the Pacific region utilizing UCTS (UMAP Credit Transfer Scheme), which aims to make international student exchange more effective by ensuring credit compatibility. UMAP is a voluntary association of government and non-government representatives of the higher education sector in Asia and the Pacific consisting of 34-member countries and regions. In Japan, UMAP Japan National Committee, which consists of representatives of Japanese member universities, served as UMAP International Secretariat by 2006, and JASSO (Japan Student Services Organization) supports UMAP through scholarship which is offered to the students who study abroad under short-term study abroad program utilizing distinctive credit transfer system including UCTS.
ii) Project for establishing core universities for internationalization（Global 30）
MEXT has launched the “Global 30” Project for Establishing Core Universities for Internationalization, for the purpose of selecting universities that will function as core schools for receiving and educating international students. These core universities will play a major role in dramatically boosting the number of international students educated in Japan as well as Japanese students studying abroad.
- Teaching in English
- To develop a system in which degree courses can be offered entirely in English: establishing 33 undergraduate courses and 124 graduate courses over the next 5 years
- Internationally open recruitment of staff to teach specialized subjects in English
- Assignment of teaching staffs from overseas with fixed term
- To improve the environment to accept international students
- Support by specialized staff to international students in their daily life, employment search, and supplementary education: increasing the number of international students in selected universities to over 50,000 in 2020 from 16,000 as of 2008.
- To promote strategic international cooperation
- To establish an “Overseas Office for Shared Utilization by Universities” as the liaison for Study in Japan: establishing 8 cities in 7 countries; Russia, Tunisia, India (2 cites), Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Egypt, and Germany
- To expand student exchange programs based on exchange agreements between universities
In 2009, the following 13 universities were selected as Core universities.
Tohoku University, University of Tsukuba, The University of Tokyo, Nagoya University, Kyoto University, Osaka University, Kyushu University, Keio University, Sophia University, Meiji University, Waseda University, Doshisha University, and Ritsumeikan University
iii) International student policy
As a part of the “global strategy” to open up Japan to the whole world and expand flows of people, goods, money and information between Japan and countries in Asia and other regions in the world, Japan aims to accept up to 300,000 international students by the year 2020. Efforts should be made to strategically acquire excellent international students, as well as to accept highly capable students, while giving due consideration to the balance of countries, regions and fields of study. Japan also continues to make intellectual contributions globally to other countries, including Asian countries. For this purpose, measures are taken systematically so as to rouse international students’ interest in studying in Japan. The plan is promoted through comprehensive and organic coordination among related ministries and agencies. Five categories of the measures are as follows;
a) Inviting international students to study in Japan – Offering incentives to study in Japan and providing one-stop service –
b) Improving introduction of entrance examinations, enrollment, and entry into Japan – Facilitating procedures for studying in Japan –
c) Promoting globalization of universities and other educational institutions – Creating attractive universities –
d) Improving the environment for accepting international students – Efforts to create an environment under which students can concentrate on studying without anxiety –
e) Promoting acceptance of international students in society after their graduation or completion of courses – Globalization of society –
3. Promoting exchange among universities with proper quality assurance
With regards to international quality assurance, in Europe, each country has made efforts to deepen social and economic cooperation and integration through building framework among European universities with quality assurance. UNESCO and OECD, on the other hands, endorsed ”Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-border Higher Education”, which aim to provide an framework for quality assurance in cross-border higher education based on mutual trust and respect for quality assurance system of each country. In Asia, discussion for effective exchange among universities begins in the countries including China, Korea and the ASEAN. In such a situation, Japan recognizes the necessity to begin high-level discussion for building framework in Asia for exchange among universities with quality assurance, considering the variety of universities and educational systems in Asia and the possibility that exchange among universities might contribute to the enhancement of regional cooperation in the East Asia.
On October 10, 2009 the 2nd Japan-China-Republic of Korea Trilateral Summit was held in Beijing, where the leaders adopted the joint statement on trilateral cooperation including exchanges among universities and agreed with Japan’s proposal to set up an inter-government committee with experts from Japan, China and Republic of Korea for investigating issues in promoting cooperation among universities with quality assurance, and to hold an international symposium on discussing quality assurance in the Asian region. Also, in the Chairman’s Statement of the 12th ASEAN Plus Three Summit (Cha-am Hua Hin, Thailand, 24 October 2009) and in the Chairman’s Statement of the 4th East Asia Summit (Cha-am Hua Hin, Thailand, 25 October 2009), the Leaders welcomed Japan’s proposal to hold the international symposium. These projects were also included in the New Growth Strategy (Basic Policies) (Cabinet decision) in December 2009.
In line with these agreements and plans, MEXT, along with authorities of China and Republic of Korea, is to hold the first meeting of the inter-government expert committee among Japan, China and Republic of Korea. In Addition, MEXT is to prepare for holding the international symposium
http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/forum2010/documents/JAPAN_recent_trends_and_developments.pdf
This paper outlines quality assurance system of higher education in Japan at first. Then it describes international activities of Japan’s higher education institutions and their efforts for internationalization. At the end, it introduces Japan’s movement toward constructing the framework for exchange among universities with proper quality assurance in East-Asian region.
1. Quality assurance of higher education in Japan
The quality assurance framework in Japan has both the advantage of the prior regulations that assure proper quality in advance, and the checking afterwards that constantly assure quality constantly while respecting the diversity of universities. This assures that universities continue to assure quality internally while respecting the principle of independence and autonomy. Three key elements are;
i) Standards for establishing universities
This contains the minimum standards and desirable goals and duties of universities by various regulations. This helps all the stakeholders understand how Japanese universities should be and what they are like. This also makes general public believe that approved institutions are trustworthy organizations.
ii) Establishment- approval system
In order to establish a university or to change academic organizations with regard to changing fields or types of degrees issue, the proposer must submit an application for approval to the Minister of MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology). The Minister commissions the Advisory Council for University Establishment, founded in the Ministry. Peer review by specialists is conducted until first set of enrolled students are to graduate. This assures that application to establish universities meet the Standards for establishing universities, have enough possibility to accomplish what it states, and continue to provide programs.
iii) Quality assurance and accreditation system
All universities in Japan have to receive certified evaluation by one of the accreditation organizations certified by the Minster of MEXT once in 7 years. These organizations evaluate the systems of management, educational and research activities by peer reviewing based on the universities’ self-examination and evaluation. This system confirms whether the universities meet the Standards for establishing universities as well as encourages universities to improve its education and research quality.
The National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation (NIAD-UE) was established to contribute to further development of higher education in Japan. In order to raise the quality of higher education institutions, it acts as one of the accreditation organizations as well as an institution to offer information about Japanese reliable quality assurance system to the world. For example, it produces the Information Package which provides both basic and specific information on the Japanese quality system of higher education in an integrated way including glossary or overview of the system.
In Addition, NIAD-UE strengthens partnerships with overseas quality assurance organizations to provide helpful information about quality assurance and accreditation in the world for Japan’s education institutions, and also to assure and enhance its evaluation activities to an internationally acceptable level. For example, NIAD-UE works together with the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education
(QAA) in the United Kingdom and the Higher Education Evaluation Center of the Ministry of Education (HEEC) in China under the bilateral Memorandum of Understanding. NIAD-UE will also organize a conference among leaders of quality assurance agencies of Japan, China and Republic of Korea.
2. International activities of Japan’s higher education institutions and their efforts for internationalization
i) International activities of Japan’s higher education institutions
Japan’s higher education institutions are playing important role in international cooperation in higher education. Among their activities, one of the most remarkable projects is the Southeast Asia Engineering Education Development Network (SEED-Net) Project, in which Japanese member universities support ASEAN member institutions to produce graduates with master's and doctoral degrees of international standard in the engineering field in order to promote sustainable social and economic development in ASEAN countries.
Also, in the area of engineering, Japanese “Kosen” (college of technology), which has successfully fostered practical and creative engineers through internationally unique five-year engineering education from 15 years old and two-year advanced course, is highly admired both in Japan and internationally; the Kosen also focuses on international activities such as the project in Turkey to develop education and training system of automatic control technology.
In terms of multilateral cooperation, UMAP (University Mobility in Asia and the Pacific) promotes mobility of university students and staff in Asia and the Pacific region utilizing UCTS (UMAP Credit Transfer Scheme), which aims to make international student exchange more effective by ensuring credit compatibility. UMAP is a voluntary association of government and non-government representatives of the higher education sector in Asia and the Pacific consisting of 34-member countries and regions. In Japan, UMAP Japan National Committee, which consists of representatives of Japanese member universities, served as UMAP International Secretariat by 2006, and JASSO (Japan Student Services Organization) supports UMAP through scholarship which is offered to the students who study abroad under short-term study abroad program utilizing distinctive credit transfer system including UCTS.
ii) Project for establishing core universities for internationalization（Global 30）
MEXT has launched the “Global 30” Project for Establishing Core Universities for Internationalization, for the purpose of selecting universities that will function as core schools for receiving and educating international students. These core universities will play a major role in dramatically boosting the number of international students educated in Japan as well as Japanese students studying abroad.
- Teaching in English
- To develop a system in which degree courses can be offered entirely in English: establishing 33 undergraduate courses and 124 graduate courses over the next 5 years
- Internationally open recruitment of staff to teach specialized subjects in English
- Assignment of teaching staffs from overseas with fixed term
- To improve the environment to accept international students
- Support by specialized staff to international students in their daily life, employment search, and supplementary education: increasing the number of international students in selected universities to over 50,000 in 2020 from 16,000 as of 2008.
- To promote strategic international cooperation
- To establish an “Overseas Office for Shared Utilization by Universities” as the liaison for Study in Japan: establishing 8 cities in 7 countries; Russia, Tunisia, India (2 cites), Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Egypt, and Germany
- To expand student exchange programs based on exchange agreements between universities
In 2009, the following 13 universities were selected as Core universities.
Tohoku University, University of Tsukuba, The University of Tokyo, Nagoya University, Kyoto University, Osaka University, Kyushu University, Keio University, Sophia University, Meiji University, Waseda University, Doshisha University, and Ritsumeikan University
iii) International student policy
As a part of the “global strategy” to open up Japan to the whole world and expand flows of people, goods, money and information between Japan and countries in Asia and other regions in the world, Japan aims to accept up to 300,000 international students by the year 2020. Efforts should be made to strategically acquire excellent international students, as well as to accept highly capable students, while giving due consideration to the balance of countries, regions and fields of study. Japan also continues to make intellectual contributions globally to other countries, including Asian countries. For this purpose, measures are taken systematically so as to rouse international students’ interest in studying in Japan. The plan is promoted through comprehensive and organic coordination among related ministries and agencies. Five categories of the measures are as follows;
a) Inviting international students to study in Japan – Offering incentives to study in Japan and providing one-stop service –
b) Improving introduction of entrance examinations, enrollment, and entry into Japan – Facilitating procedures for studying in Japan –
c) Promoting globalization of universities and other educational institutions – Creating attractive universities –
d) Improving the environment for accepting international students – Efforts to create an environment under which students can concentrate on studying without anxiety –
e) Promoting acceptance of international students in society after their graduation or completion of courses – Globalization of society –
3. Promoting exchange among universities with proper quality assurance
With regards to international quality assurance, in Europe, each country has made efforts to deepen social and economic cooperation and integration through building framework among European universities with quality assurance. UNESCO and OECD, on the other hands, endorsed ”Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-border Higher Education”, which aim to provide an framework for quality assurance in cross-border higher education based on mutual trust and respect for quality assurance system of each country. In Asia, discussion for effective exchange among universities begins in the countries including China, Korea and the ASEAN. In such a situation, Japan recognizes the necessity to begin high-level discussion for building framework in Asia for exchange among universities with quality assurance, considering the variety of universities and educational systems in Asia and the possibility that exchange among universities might contribute to the enhancement of regional cooperation in the East Asia.
On October 10, 2009 the 2nd Japan-China-Republic of Korea Trilateral Summit was held in Beijing, where the leaders adopted the joint statement on trilateral cooperation including exchanges among universities and agreed with Japan’s proposal to set up an inter-government committee with experts from Japan, China and Republic of Korea for investigating issues in promoting cooperation among universities with quality assurance, and to hold an international symposium on discussing quality assurance in the Asian region. Also, in the Chairman’s Statement of the 12th ASEAN Plus Three Summit (Cha-am Hua Hin, Thailand, 24 October 2009) and in the Chairman’s Statement of the 4th East Asia Summit (Cha-am Hua Hin, Thailand, 25 October 2009), the Leaders welcomed Japan’s proposal to hold the international symposium. These projects were also included in the New Growth Strategy (Basic Policies) (Cabinet decision) in December 2009.
In line with these agreements and plans, MEXT, along with authorities of China and Republic of Korea, is to hold the first meeting of the inter-government expert committee among Japan, China and Republic of Korea. In Addition, MEXT is to prepare for holding the international symposium
http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/forum2010/documents/JAPAN_recent_trends_and_developments.pdf
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
More universities offering majors in manga
For some people, manga may not stack up as a high-brow subject like Chinese classics or nuclear physics, but universities in Japan are increasingly offering courses on comic culture as part of their curriculum.
The first attempts to set up manga departments were greeted skeptically because universities were considered unsuited to fostering manga artists who needed creative ideas and drawing ability to be successful.
Despite the doubts, a few graduates of manga departments have moved on to professional careers.
The universities offer various courses to help prospective manga artists.
At Kobe Design University, a special class held in February offered students the opportunity to present their work to editors of manga magazines.
The one-on-one sessions often involved direct criticism of a student's work.
One editor said, "You have to make your story understandable to everyone."
Another student was told, "Your idea is a good one, but the story kind of fizzles out part of the way through."
Some students got teary-eyed during the session.
The special class was for sophomores majoring in manga in the Department of Media Arts of the School of Progressive Arts.
Since January, editors from at least 10 manga magazines have visited the campus for sessions with the students.
One traditional way manga artists have gotten a break has been to visit publishing companies and show their work to editors.
Those considered talented by the editors have had their work published, and others are often given advice on how to improve their work.
The special class was designed to train the students in selling their works to editors.
Not only do the students become accustomed to dealing with editors, they also receive advice from professionals.
Naoto Hashimoto, 20, appreciated the feedback he got by attending the special class.
"We are shown where we are weak and other things are pointed out that we may never have considered. I really appreciated being able to meet an editor."
Such practical help has benefited the first class of manga majors who graduated this spring. Of the 20 in that first cohort, 16 have won some kind of award for newcomers or have been in regular contact with an editor.
Eiji Otsuka, the professor in charge of the manga program, said, "While it is like a bonus, it is the result of thoroughly thinking about how a manga story develops and also about movie-like story lines and the relationship between a plot and characters."
The curriculum for a manga major is not easy.
Students have to produce the equivalent of about 400 pages of storyboard over a year. In every class, students are trained to create stories and characters.
There are also projects to create anime and movies.
Even students who entered as freshmen without ever having written a manga develop a certain level of skill after four years.
Some students have made their debut while still in university.
Masato Yamaguchi, 21, a junior in the Department of Manga of the Faculty of Arts at Tokyo Polytechnic University, had his work, "Uchu rescue" (Outer space rescue) published in the Shukan Shonen Magazine (Weekly youth magazine) Special by Kodansha Ltd.
It is the second time Yamaguchi's work has appeared in the magazine and he now is seeking serial publication.
A professor at the manga department, Jun Hatanaka, himself has published manga works.
"There are some people who say manga artists cannot be developed at a university," Hatanaka said. "However, if a classmate is published, others in the class will be motivated to also make a start. It is important to provide such a forum for students."
Yamaguchi spends time in a drawing room on campus to create his manga. He and other regulars of the drawing room share their opinions of each other's work.
Department head Masaru Kikuchi said, "The world of manga artists is one in which not even 10 percent of those who want to become one actually do so. For that reason, we also try to expose our students to other jobs related to the manga industry, such as editors and original authors."
In a course on manga and business, students are asked to come up with ideas for using manga in new business ventures.
A 2009 graduate of the Character Creative Arts Department of Osaka University of Arts who goes by the pen name of Toko Yurikawa knows that the path to becoming a manga artist is not easy.
After graduation, the 23-year-old moved to Tokyo to try and break into the business.
She visited publishing houses with her portfolio, having learned in university how to set up appointments and greet editors.
Her current creative style of depicting subjects from her daily life in essay form was also established after receiving advice in university.
"I was taught everything I needed to know," Yurikawa said. "The rest is up to me."
The university also offers courses on passing the certification test for color coordinators as well as classes in data processing and English.
Support in finding a job is also provided. The Character Creative Arts Department also has programs in anime and video games and related courses in those programs.
Some manga majors have a change of heart and enter different fields.
At least 10 universities offer majors or courses on manga and animation.
The pioneer was Kyoto Seika University, which established what is the only manga faculty in Japan in 2006. The faculty is fairly large. It has a capacity of 200 students per year.
When the predecessor to Kyoto Seika University began as a junior college in 1968, it was already offering classes on manga.
They were upgraded to manga courses in 1973 and a manga department was established in 2000.
The central government's white paper on education took notice of the university's endeavor "as one doing research on manga as a scholarly field."
In the 2010 school year, a master's program in manga studies starts at Kyoto Seika.
"As a university, we want to provide a path that will allow graduates to become connected to society," said Keiko Takemiya, head of the manga faculty.
One example is more practical manga that covers everything from company histories to pamphlets provided by hospitals to patients to help explain certain diseases to educational materials that explain traditional arts and crafts.
The university creates such manga after receiving orders and has set up a business operation for that purpose. Graduates are recruited to draw the manga and between 50 and 60 orders are received a year.
Last spring, Kentaro Takekuma, a manga editor, joined the faculty as a professor.
Takekuma had been teaching manga at Tama Art University since 2003. Since 2008, he has been regularly self-publishing a magazine to provide his students with a forum for their work.
"Universities are different from publishing houses because they do not have a medium," Takekuma said. "Beginners can be developed if they have a forum for expression."
Universities offering manga courses are using different methods to widen their appeal.
Manga majors at Bunsei University of Art have Tetsuya Chiba as their professor. He is famed for his "Ashita no Joe" (Tomorrow's Joe) boxing manga.
Chiba's motto is to work up a sweat at least once a day, instead of being cooped up in a room. He often takes his students outdoors to play catch. The parents of his students, many of whom are his fans, appear more happy about such efforts than the students.
Editors have their own opinion about how effective universities are.
Shoji Maruyama, a deputy managing editor of the monthly magazine "Comic Zero-Sum," has helped with university courses and accepted submissions from graduates.
"Universities are a place where it is possible to come into contact with talent so I will happily go if asked," Maruyama said. "People who have studied manga in university create works based on their own thinking. That is attractive. I think more graduates will become professionals."
However, Yukitoshi Sakaguchi, who is in charge of university entrance information at the Yoyogi Seminar cram school, believes only those programs with true value will survive.
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201004050323.html
The first attempts to set up manga departments were greeted skeptically because universities were considered unsuited to fostering manga artists who needed creative ideas and drawing ability to be successful.
Despite the doubts, a few graduates of manga departments have moved on to professional careers.
The universities offer various courses to help prospective manga artists.
At Kobe Design University, a special class held in February offered students the opportunity to present their work to editors of manga magazines.
The one-on-one sessions often involved direct criticism of a student's work.
One editor said, "You have to make your story understandable to everyone."
Another student was told, "Your idea is a good one, but the story kind of fizzles out part of the way through."
Some students got teary-eyed during the session.
The special class was for sophomores majoring in manga in the Department of Media Arts of the School of Progressive Arts.
Since January, editors from at least 10 manga magazines have visited the campus for sessions with the students.
One traditional way manga artists have gotten a break has been to visit publishing companies and show their work to editors.
Those considered talented by the editors have had their work published, and others are often given advice on how to improve their work.
The special class was designed to train the students in selling their works to editors.
Not only do the students become accustomed to dealing with editors, they also receive advice from professionals.
Naoto Hashimoto, 20, appreciated the feedback he got by attending the special class.
"We are shown where we are weak and other things are pointed out that we may never have considered. I really appreciated being able to meet an editor."
Such practical help has benefited the first class of manga majors who graduated this spring. Of the 20 in that first cohort, 16 have won some kind of award for newcomers or have been in regular contact with an editor.
Eiji Otsuka, the professor in charge of the manga program, said, "While it is like a bonus, it is the result of thoroughly thinking about how a manga story develops and also about movie-like story lines and the relationship between a plot and characters."
The curriculum for a manga major is not easy.
Students have to produce the equivalent of about 400 pages of storyboard over a year. In every class, students are trained to create stories and characters.
There are also projects to create anime and movies.
Even students who entered as freshmen without ever having written a manga develop a certain level of skill after four years.
Some students have made their debut while still in university.
Masato Yamaguchi, 21, a junior in the Department of Manga of the Faculty of Arts at Tokyo Polytechnic University, had his work, "Uchu rescue" (Outer space rescue) published in the Shukan Shonen Magazine (Weekly youth magazine) Special by Kodansha Ltd.
It is the second time Yamaguchi's work has appeared in the magazine and he now is seeking serial publication.
A professor at the manga department, Jun Hatanaka, himself has published manga works.
"There are some people who say manga artists cannot be developed at a university," Hatanaka said. "However, if a classmate is published, others in the class will be motivated to also make a start. It is important to provide such a forum for students."
Yamaguchi spends time in a drawing room on campus to create his manga. He and other regulars of the drawing room share their opinions of each other's work.
Department head Masaru Kikuchi said, "The world of manga artists is one in which not even 10 percent of those who want to become one actually do so. For that reason, we also try to expose our students to other jobs related to the manga industry, such as editors and original authors."
In a course on manga and business, students are asked to come up with ideas for using manga in new business ventures.
A 2009 graduate of the Character Creative Arts Department of Osaka University of Arts who goes by the pen name of Toko Yurikawa knows that the path to becoming a manga artist is not easy.
After graduation, the 23-year-old moved to Tokyo to try and break into the business.
She visited publishing houses with her portfolio, having learned in university how to set up appointments and greet editors.
Her current creative style of depicting subjects from her daily life in essay form was also established after receiving advice in university.
"I was taught everything I needed to know," Yurikawa said. "The rest is up to me."
The university also offers courses on passing the certification test for color coordinators as well as classes in data processing and English.
Support in finding a job is also provided. The Character Creative Arts Department also has programs in anime and video games and related courses in those programs.
Some manga majors have a change of heart and enter different fields.
At least 10 universities offer majors or courses on manga and animation.
The pioneer was Kyoto Seika University, which established what is the only manga faculty in Japan in 2006. The faculty is fairly large. It has a capacity of 200 students per year.
When the predecessor to Kyoto Seika University began as a junior college in 1968, it was already offering classes on manga.
They were upgraded to manga courses in 1973 and a manga department was established in 2000.
The central government's white paper on education took notice of the university's endeavor "as one doing research on manga as a scholarly field."
In the 2010 school year, a master's program in manga studies starts at Kyoto Seika.
"As a university, we want to provide a path that will allow graduates to become connected to society," said Keiko Takemiya, head of the manga faculty.
One example is more practical manga that covers everything from company histories to pamphlets provided by hospitals to patients to help explain certain diseases to educational materials that explain traditional arts and crafts.
The university creates such manga after receiving orders and has set up a business operation for that purpose. Graduates are recruited to draw the manga and between 50 and 60 orders are received a year.
Last spring, Kentaro Takekuma, a manga editor, joined the faculty as a professor.
Takekuma had been teaching manga at Tama Art University since 2003. Since 2008, he has been regularly self-publishing a magazine to provide his students with a forum for their work.
"Universities are different from publishing houses because they do not have a medium," Takekuma said. "Beginners can be developed if they have a forum for expression."
Universities offering manga courses are using different methods to widen their appeal.
Manga majors at Bunsei University of Art have Tetsuya Chiba as their professor. He is famed for his "Ashita no Joe" (Tomorrow's Joe) boxing manga.
Chiba's motto is to work up a sweat at least once a day, instead of being cooped up in a room. He often takes his students outdoors to play catch. The parents of his students, many of whom are his fans, appear more happy about such efforts than the students.
Editors have their own opinion about how effective universities are.
Shoji Maruyama, a deputy managing editor of the monthly magazine "Comic Zero-Sum," has helped with university courses and accepted submissions from graduates.
"Universities are a place where it is possible to come into contact with talent so I will happily go if asked," Maruyama said. "People who have studied manga in university create works based on their own thinking. That is attractive. I think more graduates will become professionals."
However, Yukitoshi Sakaguchi, who is in charge of university entrance information at the Yoyogi Seminar cram school, believes only those programs with true value will survive.
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201004050323.html
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