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
Thursday, July 22, 2010
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:「キャンパス・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:「キャンパス・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
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
A foreigner-friendly field of dreams?
By JAY KLAPHAKE
In the 1989 Oscar-nominated fantasy-drama film "Field of Dreams," the main character, a farmer played by Kevin Costner, heard a voice that kept whispering the phrase "If you build it, he will come." The Voice urged Costner's character to take a leap of faith and build a baseball diamond in the middle of an Iowa cornfield.
It would seem that about five years ago the Voice relocated from Iowa to Japan, where its refrain, "Build it, they will come," was heard by bureaucrats at the justice and education ministries, as well as by many universities, when they approved the opening of 68 (later to become 74) new law schools as part of legal education reform. The new system was pushed through in response to a 2001 Justice System Reform Council report that proclaimed the need for Japan to "create a justice system for the 21st century," in part to "internationalize the training of lawyers."
Fast-forward to today and you would be hard-pressed to hear anyone in Japan utter "internationalize" and "law school" in the same sentence. Instead, because of low bar exam pass rates, the word is that law schools are producing unqualified graduates.
However, contrary to the critics, the problem with the bar passage rate does not lie with the quality of the new law school graduates or the education they received. In reality, the exam is just a spigot, and the opponents of change now have their hands on the valve. By sabotaging the promised increase in the bar passage rate, they have undermined the successful implementation of legal education reform, and the unfortunate result is that many law schools are in danger of turning into little more than overpriced cram schools for the bar exam.
Last year, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, along with 13 select universities, launched the ambitious and well-intentioned "Global 30" Project for Establishing Core Universities for Internationalization. Apparently, the mischievous Voice decided to extend its visa in Japan (let's hope it doesn't apply for permanent residence). New faculties, programs, graduate schools and dormitories are quickly being built in the hope that "they will come." One can't help but wonder what, if anything, Japan has learned from the law school debacle.
In last week's Zeit Gist column, Chris Burgess concluded that "the contradictory nature of the (Global 30) project's goals suggests successful implementation will be problematic." But even assuming the goals are perfect, there is still a high probability that many of the 13 universities will ultimately fail to successfully implement them. Just as the law school reforms have been sabotaged, the Global 30 programs easily can fall prey to similar interference by the opponents of change. Even before the 13 universities were selected, Global 30 proposals encountered strong resistance from conservative faculty within the candidate institutions, and there is no reason to believe that will go away.
To put it simply, the fundamental barrier to world-class status for Japanese universities is that many faculty members just aren't that enthusiastic about welcoming large numbers of international teaching staff and students as anything more than visitors.
Whatever the enthusiasm deficit, the reality is that the most successful universities in the world need to attract the best students and faculty. Japan's neighbors, South Korea and China, have come to understand this, and their top universities are now progressively moving to internationalize their curricula and teaching staff. As a result, Japanese universities that once aspired to world-class status may soon find themselves increasingly falling behind their Asian neighbors. If this trend is ignored, they also run the risk that Japan's most talented students and researchers may decide to leave Japan, skipping the Japanese system entirely in their search for top-quality global higher education.
An analysis of the QS World University Rankings shows that the weakest indicator of Japanese universities compared to other world-class centers of learning is the proportion of international faculty (the second-weakest indicator is the percentage of international students, so the Global 30 Project, if successful, should yield higher rankings for Japanese universities). According to QS data, at top-ranked Harvard and second-placed Cambridge, international faculty make up between one-third and half of the full-time teaching staff. In Asia, the ratio of international faculty at leading universities such as the University of Hong Kong and National University of Singapore is also about 50-50. At Japan's most-highly ranked institution, Tokyo University, the ratio is a dismal one-in-16.
Despite bold initial pledges by many Global 30 institutions to attract "top class" talent and significantly increase the number of international faculty, the most recent evidence points to only halfhearted efforts in this direction. A look at the first round of Global 30 job postings on the Japan Research Career Information Network Web site reveals that, so far, most of the 13 universities selected to be centers of internationalization are only interested in employing non-Japanese professors on four- or five-year limited-term nonrenewable contracts. What "top class" students will want to enroll in any of these programs two or three years from now, knowing that the international professors may be dismissed before their junior year? What international students will want to make a commitment to be educated in Japan at a university that has demonstrated no commitment to its international faculty?
In the past, Japanese students, parents and employers alike have largely relied on a university's name as a simple means of judging the quality of an institution. This is thankfully beginning to change, with increased interest in independent rankings and other comparative measures of quality. International students are even more likely to seek such transparency in institutional information, so next month a group of international educators will formally launch global30.org, a noncommercial Web site providing objective information for prospective students and the public on the Global 30 programs. The site will offer annual report cards evaluating and comparing data on the quality of the programs at the Global 30 institutions as well as an ongoing overall assessment of the effectiveness of the Global 30 Project.
Not that international students need to rely on scholars, or even slick university admissions brochures, to tell them what constitutes a good educational experience. Today's Web-savvy students make extensive use of social media, using Twitter, Facebook and blogs to instantly share the reality of their experiences across the globe. Universities that fail to fully deliver on their promises and provide the high-quality education expected by international students will soon find the well of interested applicants runs dry.
The question isn't "Will international students come to Japan?" but rather "How long will it last?" Luring students to Japan with the promise of a world-class education in the first year is much easier than keeping them coming and retaining them.
Four or five years from now, the reality will overcome the rhetoric. The choice is clear: Global 30 institutions can transform themselves by providing students with a top-class global education, embracing international students and professors by treating them as equals in every way, or they can use sleight of hand to try and hide the fact that what they really offer is a parochial, second-rate education. Universities choosing to pursue the former strategy will ultimately be rewarded with outstanding international talent, students and faculty alike, and the world-class status that comes with them. Those that choose the latter will soon find recruiting "top class" international "human resources" to be nothing more than a field of dreams.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Higher education: opening up or closing in?
In his opening address to the Diet in January 2008, then Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announced a proposal to increase the number of foreign students studying in Japan to 300,000 by 2020. The plan, presented under the heading "an open Japan," aims to bring in "top-class talent" from overseas to Japan's graduate schools and industries.
Moves to bring in more foreign students have long been a key engine driving higher education reform in Japan. Yasuhiro Nakasone's ambitious 1983 goal of bringing 100,000 foreign students to Japan — a target that took 20 years to attain (see graph) — was the first step in his plan to "internationalize" Japanese education. Nakasone himself was largely responsible for popularizing the term kokusaika (internationalization), as evidenced by his 1984 pledge to transform Japan into an "international country" (kokusai kokka nihon).
The 300,000-student goal is the driving force behind the the Global 30 Project, or, to give it its full title, the Kokusaika Kyoten Seibi Jigyo (literally, Kokusaika Hub Consolidation Project), a ¥15 billion plan to select and "internationalize" 30 core universities. Here "internationalization" is mainly interpreted as meaning the recruitment and education of international students in Japan, though the possibility of two-way exchanges, such as Japanese students studying abroad, is also mentioned.
Two terms which stand out in the Global 30 rhetoric are "competitiveness" and "human resources." The importance of the former was underlined by Fukuda's successor, Taro Aso, in his January 2009 policy speech, just a year after Fukuda announced his 300,000-student target.
"We will also be reinforcing our universities' international competitiveness (kokusai kyosoryoku) by promoting courses of study in which all degree requirements can be completed in English only, as well as programs for research centers of excellence at the global level," he told the Diet.
Aso's statement mentioned the first of four "action plans" aimed at creating an attractive educational and research environment for international students: the expansion of courses in which degrees can be earned through English-only classes. Whereas as of 2006, only six departments at five universities and 101 courses at 57 graduate schools allowed students to graduate after attending classes taught only in English, the Global 30 calls for an extra 33 undergraduate and 124 graduate courses to be taught entirely in the language.
A second pillar of the plan seeks to enhance facilities for receiving and hosting foreign students, such as specialist support staff, internship programs and flexible semester start dates. A third pillar aims to provide international students with opportunities to learn about Japanese language and culture. The fourth and final pillar concerns the setting up of overseas offices to provide a "one-stop service" for local recruitment and examination as well as furthering cooperation with local universities.
In July 2009, an initial 13 universities — seven national and six private — were selected from 22 applicants to receive Global 30 funding over the next five years. Their obligations include the recruitment of between 3,000 and 8,000 international students each. For example, Ritsumeikan University, a private university of 36,000 students in Kyoto, aims to increase the percentage of international students from its current (2008) 3.1 percent to 11.3, and the proportion of foreign faculty members from 9.9 to 15 percent by 2020.
At first glance, the Global 30 project would seem to be an example of Japan's "opening up." Certainly, the falling birth rate means Japanese universities need to attract more international students if they are to survive. The emphasis on lectures taught in English — the "global standard" — is consistent with the goal of turning Japanese higher education institutions into "international centers of learning" that can compete with universities in other countries for students.
But despite the rhetoric, kokusaika is not as straightforward a term as it first appears. First, the fact that Nakasone, a staunch nationalist, was largely responsible for making kokusaika official policy suggests that the term, at least in its dominant form, is rather different from English "internationalization." In fact, as government policy, kokusaika is best seen as a kind of defensive reaction to foreign pressure, a process in which Japan attempts to promote and maintain Japanese identity and national unity. In other words, kokusaika, at least in its dominant conservative manifestation, is less about transcending cultural barriers and more about protecting them.
Since the bursting of the bubble in 1990 and the ensuing "lost decade" — with its accompanying loss of national self-confidence — the term kokusaika, while continuing to enjoy a positive image, has become less popular. In recent years the term gurobaruka (globalization) — a word that only came into common currency in Japan in the late 1990s — has tended to feature more in the media. Unlike kokusaika, gurobaruka corresponds closely to the English meaning of a growing interconnectedness, unprecedented in its intensity. This encapsulates the crucial difference between kokusaika and gurobaruka: Globalization is an external process over which Japan has little or no influence or control.
While both kokusaika and gurobaruka involve coping with and responding to outside challenges and criticism, the latter demands passive compliance with external norms that Japan is unable to control, whereas the former actively pushes back against perceived threats to Japanese identity. Put differently, both kokusaika and gurobaruka describe something that surrounds Japan and that requires appropriate measures; however, kokusaika, unlike gurobaruka, also describes an activity the Japanese themselves engage in.
Educational reform in Japan in general, and the Global 30 in particular, demonstrate elements of both kokusaika and gurobaruka. A good example is the compromise that accompanied the education ministry's 2003 "action plan" to cultivate "Japanese who can use English." The plan, which will see English become compulsory for 5th- and 6th-grade elementary school students from 2011, came in for much criticism from those who argued that it was more important for youngsters to first learn Japanese properly before tackling English. Thus, in order to appease the critics, the ministry took pains to stress that the study of a foreign language would lead to a deeper understanding of Japanese language and culture.
The 300,000-foreign-student plan itself provides another example: Soon after the plan was presented, it was also announced that the government would expand the number of overseas Japanese-language facilities 10-fold, a move the Foreign Ministry portrayed as "fundamental for international understanding."
And in the Global 30, the English- content courses sit uncomfortably with the plan to provide "high-quality" instruction in Japanese language and culture, something Asian students in particular may find a little too ideological for their liking. Thus, at the same time as arguing that classes in English have a vital role to play in attracting foreign students, the education ministry also asks whether it is meaningful to graduate from a Japanese university without having studied Japanese at all. After all, they argue, isn't study in Japan an opportunity to learn about the country and its language, something that is necessary for both daily life and future career prospects? The rhetorical contortions and contradictions are painfully apparent.
Historically, Japan has attempted to defend and protect itself from "dangerous" foreign influences while at the same time accumulating goods, knowledge and resources that would make Japan more competitive internationally. Contemporary higher education reform reflects a similar push and pull: a desire to protect and strengthen Japanese national identity in the face of foreign pressure while at the same time acknowledging the necessity of embracing global trends, currents and standards. The result, as the case of the Global 30 suggests, is that a "closing in" occurs at the same time as an "opening up."
It is still too early to judge whether the Global 30 will be a success, but the initial signs are not promising. The new administration has already marked the Global 30 for budget cuts, and there are strong suggestions that the second selection stage may be indefinitely postponed, reducing the Global 30 to a "Global 13."
Certainly, the contradictory nature of the project's goals suggests successful implementation will be problematic। In the end, the need to compromise between the desire to maintain Japan's cultural independence and the need to promote English as an indispensable tool for international market competitiveness means Fukuda's target of 300,000 foreign students will be difficult to achieve.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20100323zg.html
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Japan's first film university to be launched next year
A vocational film school in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, is set to become Japan's first accredited university specializing in filmmaking from April next year, with the goal of becoming an academy of motion picture arts drawing students not only from Japan but other Asian countries, the school said.
"We hope to make the university a major movie hub, gathering young Asians," said Tadao Sato, head of the Japan Academy of Moving Images.
"Making it a university was a dream of director Imamura," he said, referring to the late film director Shohei Imamura, who founded the precursor to the Japan Academy.
The corporation running the vocational school plans to file an application for accreditation with the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry in late March.
Imamura, a two-time laureate of the Cannes International Film Festival Palme d'Or for "The Ballad of Narayama" and "The Eel," launched the previous school 35 years ago.
Graduates of the school include many distinguished filmmakers, including Sang-il Lee, the director of "Hula Girls."
Film academies in China and South Korea have asked for an exchange program with the school.
But progress has not been made on the proposals because the school is not an accredited institution that can transfer credits to and from other like institutions and offer scholarships.
"We would be able to exchange teachers and students across borders if we become a university," Sato said.
Sato has introduced Asian films to Japan through his work as a film critic.
While continuing to teach filmmaking techniques, such as camera work and the history of movies in Japan and abroad, the school plans to provide additional education needed to understand film cultures, including literature, philosophy and languages, school officials said.
The school has been enrolling 200 students a year in the acting and imaging departments.
It plans to get rid of the acting department, reducing the enrolment quota to 140 a year when it becomes a university।
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9EBH6C82&show_article=1
Monday, February 08, 2010
Australia the top choice for Japanese school excursions
Australia is the number one destination for Japanese school excursions and study tours, according to a report by the Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. In the 2007-08 Japanese financial year, 43,669 Japanese students visited Australia, of whom 34,802 arrived for school excursions and 8,867 came for language study tours. After Australia, the next most popular destinations for students are the United States (including Guam and Hawaii) and Korea.Last year Japanese school trips were heavily affected by H1N1 Influenza. To reassure the market, Tourism Australia has been working to promote Australia as a safe destination for school excursions, with marketing activities targeted towards decision making teachers.Tourism Australia has refreshed the educational website http://school.australia.jp/ and over the coming months, further activities are planned, including a new e-newsletter for teachers, an Aussie excursion education manual for schools and a series of educational familiarisation trips in partnership with the State Tourism Organisations।
http://www.ftnnews.com/content/view/8529/31/
http://www.ftnnews.com/content/view/8529/31/
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Tsukuba University launches seminar on “Study in Japan”
A seminar entitled “Study in Japanese Universities” will be held on February 3, 2010 at the Auditorium of the National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia (INAT).
The event is organized by the office of “University of Tsukuba” in Tunis for Japanese Universities (BUTUJ) within the framework of the project for establishing Core Universities for internationalization (30 global projects) sponsored by the Japanese ministry of education.
The seminar will be a “gateway” for Tunisian students who are interested in study in Japan, Japanese scholarship programs as well as program courses of Japanese universities.
Accordingly, the seminar will provide an opportunity for Tunisian students and professors to discuss and consult with Japanese persons concerned on practical aspects of study in Japan.
Monday, January 18, 2010
The "300000 Foreign Students Plan" Campaign
In 2008, the Government of Japan announced the "300000 Foreign Students Plan," which calls to increase the number of foreign students in Japan from the current 120,000 to 300,000 students by 2020. It is aiming to make a significant increase in the number of foreign students studying in Japan in the next five years.
We spoke to the officer in charge of the plan at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology about the background and objectives of this plan।
The number of foreign students coming to Japan to study currently numbers approximately 120,000. As the international movement of students at the level of higher education is expected to increase even more on a global scale, there has been much discussion carried out in various quarters - using a variety of concepts and numerical values - on how Japan should go about accepting foreign students since the 100000 Foreign Students Plan was achieved in 2003.
The "300000 Foreign Students Plan" was announced by former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in his Policy Speech to the 169th Session of the Diet (January 2008) as being important in order to make Japan a country that is more open to the world and to expand the flow of people to and from Japan.
Regarding "300,000" as being the number of foreign students accepted in Japan, there is a need to consider this by comparing it with several different circumstances, such as the number of foreign students being accepted by other countries and the current number of foreign students being accepted here in Japan.
It is said that there is currently a total of 3.5 million students enrolled in Japanese institutions of higher education, such as universities. While the overall number is on a downward trend with the decline in the Japanese population under age 18, there is an increase, at the same time, in the rate of those advancing to higher education, etc. For such reasons, it can be assumed that the number of those enrolled in Japanese institutions of higher education will continue to remain at roughly 3 million in the future.
Meanwhile, if we look at the current state of foreign student enrollment in other countries, we see that in the case of Germany, a developed non-English-speaking nation like Japan, foreign students account for 12.3% of all students enrolled in an institution of higher education. In France, foreign students account for 11.9% of all students in an institution of higher education. (Meanwhile, foreign students in an English-speaking nation account for, in the case of the UK, 25.1% of all students in higher education, and likewise 26.2% in Australia.)
If Japanese institutions of higher education are to secure a level of foreign student enrollment similar to that of other developed nations, there is a need to increase the percentage of foreign students from the current 3 percent-plus to a percentage close to that of Germany or France, or about 10%. (In other words, 10% of 3 million students, which is roughly equal to 300,000.)
There is also a report that says the global foreign student market will rapidly expand in the future. This report estimates that the number of foreign students worldwide will be at about 5 million in 2015, increasing to 7 million by 2025.
Foreign students in Japan currently account for about 5% of all foreign students worldwide. If we suppose that the number of all foreign students in 2020, the midway point in the report, is 6 million, then Japan would need to accept about 300,000 foreign students in order to maintain its current share.
I think you can see, from these two numerical situations alone, the importance of this number - 300,000 - as being the target for foreign student acceptance by institutions of higher education in Japan; that is, if they are to play a role similar to one played by institutions of higher education in other countries.
We believe that proactive acceptance of foreign students, who become a major source of high-level human resources, by Japanese institutions of higher education, leads not only to the reinforcement of Japan's international human resource pool but also builds human networks between Japan and other countries, enhances mutual understanding and fosters greater amicable relationships, and contributes to global stability and world peace.
An environment that is further conducive to study in Japan by foreign students is being prepared through this plan। We hope that even more students from your country will come to Japan to study in the future.
A DVD, posters, leaflets and pin badges that show the appeal of studying in Japan have been produced as part of promotional items created for the "300000 Foreign Students Plan" 2009 Campaign. They will be used at foreign student events and fairs to be held in various countries in the future, so the day that you see them yourself is probably not too far off. All of these items show a logo that was produced for this plan.
Let us tell you the story behind the production of this logo.
The concept for this logo was discussed by a committee of related parties that was comprised of those from ministries, agencies, universities and other organizations involved with foreign students as well as key figures. Foreign students were also asked questions such as, "What do you think of when you hear the word 'Japan'?" "What color do you think of when you think about Japan?" in questionnaires or shown several printed materials and asked which one they liked the most. Several designers then submitted many draft designs on the basis of the results of these questionnaires and the concept decided by the committee.
Candidate logos were then chosen after undergoing several screening processes, with the final logo design chosen on the basis of ballots cast by current foreign students in Japan.We are confident that this logo will help communicate to potential foreign students in various countries the appeal of studying in Japan. We are also happy to report that the main persons appearing in these posters, leaflets and DVD are current or former study-in-Japan students. Perhaps you will find someone that you know in them!
Please check these posters, leaflets and DVD(in 11 languages)out at a Japanese embassy or consulate general near you। Leaflets have been produced in eight languages (English, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Korean, French, Thai, Indonesian and Vietnamese). A large number have been made, so please do make use of them as you see fit. For further information, please contact a Japanese embassy or consulate near you. We are sure that you will see the birth of new study-in-Japan "kohai" through the utilization of these materials.
http://www.studyjapan.go.jp/en/toj/toj09e.html
We spoke to the officer in charge of the plan at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology about the background and objectives of this plan।
The number of foreign students coming to Japan to study currently numbers approximately 120,000. As the international movement of students at the level of higher education is expected to increase even more on a global scale, there has been much discussion carried out in various quarters - using a variety of concepts and numerical values - on how Japan should go about accepting foreign students since the 100000 Foreign Students Plan was achieved in 2003.
The "300000 Foreign Students Plan" was announced by former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in his Policy Speech to the 169th Session of the Diet (January 2008) as being important in order to make Japan a country that is more open to the world and to expand the flow of people to and from Japan.
Regarding "300,000" as being the number of foreign students accepted in Japan, there is a need to consider this by comparing it with several different circumstances, such as the number of foreign students being accepted by other countries and the current number of foreign students being accepted here in Japan.
It is said that there is currently a total of 3.5 million students enrolled in Japanese institutions of higher education, such as universities. While the overall number is on a downward trend with the decline in the Japanese population under age 18, there is an increase, at the same time, in the rate of those advancing to higher education, etc. For such reasons, it can be assumed that the number of those enrolled in Japanese institutions of higher education will continue to remain at roughly 3 million in the future.
Meanwhile, if we look at the current state of foreign student enrollment in other countries, we see that in the case of Germany, a developed non-English-speaking nation like Japan, foreign students account for 12.3% of all students enrolled in an institution of higher education. In France, foreign students account for 11.9% of all students in an institution of higher education. (Meanwhile, foreign students in an English-speaking nation account for, in the case of the UK, 25.1% of all students in higher education, and likewise 26.2% in Australia.)
If Japanese institutions of higher education are to secure a level of foreign student enrollment similar to that of other developed nations, there is a need to increase the percentage of foreign students from the current 3 percent-plus to a percentage close to that of Germany or France, or about 10%. (In other words, 10% of 3 million students, which is roughly equal to 300,000.)
There is also a report that says the global foreign student market will rapidly expand in the future. This report estimates that the number of foreign students worldwide will be at about 5 million in 2015, increasing to 7 million by 2025.
Foreign students in Japan currently account for about 5% of all foreign students worldwide. If we suppose that the number of all foreign students in 2020, the midway point in the report, is 6 million, then Japan would need to accept about 300,000 foreign students in order to maintain its current share.
I think you can see, from these two numerical situations alone, the importance of this number - 300,000 - as being the target for foreign student acceptance by institutions of higher education in Japan; that is, if they are to play a role similar to one played by institutions of higher education in other countries.
We believe that proactive acceptance of foreign students, who become a major source of high-level human resources, by Japanese institutions of higher education, leads not only to the reinforcement of Japan's international human resource pool but also builds human networks between Japan and other countries, enhances mutual understanding and fosters greater amicable relationships, and contributes to global stability and world peace.
An environment that is further conducive to study in Japan by foreign students is being prepared through this plan। We hope that even more students from your country will come to Japan to study in the future.
A DVD, posters, leaflets and pin badges that show the appeal of studying in Japan have been produced as part of promotional items created for the "300000 Foreign Students Plan" 2009 Campaign. They will be used at foreign student events and fairs to be held in various countries in the future, so the day that you see them yourself is probably not too far off. All of these items show a logo that was produced for this plan.
Let us tell you the story behind the production of this logo.
The concept for this logo was discussed by a committee of related parties that was comprised of those from ministries, agencies, universities and other organizations involved with foreign students as well as key figures. Foreign students were also asked questions such as, "What do you think of when you hear the word 'Japan'?" "What color do you think of when you think about Japan?" in questionnaires or shown several printed materials and asked which one they liked the most. Several designers then submitted many draft designs on the basis of the results of these questionnaires and the concept decided by the committee.
Candidate logos were then chosen after undergoing several screening processes, with the final logo design chosen on the basis of ballots cast by current foreign students in Japan.We are confident that this logo will help communicate to potential foreign students in various countries the appeal of studying in Japan. We are also happy to report that the main persons appearing in these posters, leaflets and DVD are current or former study-in-Japan students. Perhaps you will find someone that you know in them!
Please check these posters, leaflets and DVD(in 11 languages)out at a Japanese embassy or consulate general near you। Leaflets have been produced in eight languages (English, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Korean, French, Thai, Indonesian and Vietnamese). A large number have been made, so please do make use of them as you see fit. For further information, please contact a Japanese embassy or consulate near you. We are sure that you will see the birth of new study-in-Japan "kohai" through the utilization of these materials.
http://www.studyjapan.go.jp/en/toj/toj09e.html
Oman, Japan explore avenues in education
17 January 2010MUSCAT -- Dr Rawvya bint Saud al Busaidiya, Minister of Higher Education, received at the ministry Seiji Morimoto, the Japanese Ambassador to the Sultanate. Seiji Morimoto thanked the minister for allowing the opportunity to discuss certain aspects of scientific and academic collaboration between the Sultanate and his country. Dr Rawya said that her ministry was particularly keen to develop ties with Japan in the light of the ministry's policy of academic and scholastic multiplicity and openness.She elaborated that the Sultanate looked admirably to the remarkable emergence of Japan from the ashes of World War II to accomplish the economic miracle and become a world leading power. She added that the Sultanate was looking forward to learn from the unique Japanese model of the proverbial scientific advancement in fields as industry and technology. The two parties deliberated specific issues such as exploring the possibility of sending Omani students to study at renowned Japanese universities such as the Technical University of Tokyo as well as the collaboration in exchanging scholarships and teaching Japanese and Arabic as foreign languages.They also discussed other topics including the arrangement of orientation workshops to introduce Japanese culture and academic system to Omani students who were to study in Japan. The two parties agreed to continue their meetings and exchange visits for the purpose of accomplishing their mutual goals.
http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidZAWYA20100117034633/Oman,%20Japan%20explore%20avenues%20in%20education
http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidZAWYA20100117034633/Oman,%20Japan%20explore%20avenues%20in%20education
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