AUSTRALIA'S trade and tourism agencies are making a renewed push to boost the number of Japanese visiting the country to study English or vocational courses and for work experience.
The number of Japanese visitors to Australia has dwindled in recent years and the country has fallen behind India, China and South Korea as a source of foreign students.
Austrade's Tokyo office and Tourism Australia have begun a campaign to capitalise on the failure of Japan's universities and corporations to produce globally savvy staff capable of competing in the international economy.
The Step Up in Australia campaign is designed to get Japanese university students to undertake some study here and young graduates to pursue further study and internships.
The head of Tourism Australia in Japan, Kaz Hori, said the program allowed Australia to present the full range of study abroad options to lure Japanese students.
"Australia is the pre-eminent destination for school excursions from Japan and attracts a large number of short-term language students each year," he said. "What this initiative outlines is the next step in the career development of young Japanese, providing them with a step-up opportunity to compete in a globalised world."
Today's generation of young Japanese is more reluctant to travel and work overseas than their parents' generation, resulting in more insular and less sophisticated employees.
And the university sector in Japan is under fire for failing to produce graduates with the ability to speak English at high enough level to compete with their counterparts from rising Asian powers such as China, South Korea and India.
A recent report from Austrade on developing Japan's human capital found the country faced a critical skills deficiency. As Japanese companies are increasingly looking to bolster their presence overseas, there is a widespread realisation that Japan lacks globally literate people capable of negotiating the challenges of international business.
The Japanese government is aware of these faults and is working on reforms, while a growing number of university campuses are offering courses delivered in English amid efforts to make universities more multicultural.
Japan also wants to increase the number of foreign students in the country from the present level of 100,000 to 300,000.
But, meantime, the federal government believes there is an opportunity for Australia, which is in almost the same time zone as Japan, to help bridge this gap.
Austrade has begun approaching Japanese corporations to explain the merits of sending employees to Australia to further their skills in English, or do short courses in global or Asian business studies.
The best performing Japanese companies are increasingly shifting their focus to the rest of Asia as the domestic market shrinks amid ongoing economic stagnation.
The Japanese branch of KFC is the only example so far of how the scheme may work. The company sends employees to Adelaide to study English, then brings them to Sydney to meet the Australian management of the chain and for work experience.
To launch the campaign, the Australian government offered two scholarships - one for a university student and one for an employee - to do a Step Up program at the University of NSW.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/push-to-attract-japanese-students-here/story-e6frgcjx-1226079461717
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Keidanren to launch scholarships for students studying abroad
The Japan Business Federation said Monday it will launch scholarships next year to support students studying abroad, given that young Japanese people are said to have grown reluctant to study or work overseas.
The nation's largest business lobby, known as Keidanren, plans to provide annual scholarships of 1 million yen each to 30 students from 13 universities, including Tohoku University and Doshisha University, who will study at foreign colleges for one year on exchange programs.
The number of universities covered by the scholarships will be gradually increased.
The federation will also support their efforts to find jobs after they return home as students are often concerned that studying abroad would affect their ability to secure employment.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9NQVU500&show_article=1
The nation's largest business lobby, known as Keidanren, plans to provide annual scholarships of 1 million yen each to 30 students from 13 universities, including Tohoku University and Doshisha University, who will study at foreign colleges for one year on exchange programs.
The number of universities covered by the scholarships will be gradually increased.
The federation will also support their efforts to find jobs after they return home as students are often concerned that studying abroad would affect their ability to secure employment.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9NQVU500&show_article=1
Monday, June 13, 2011
University in Kyoto to offer doctoral course on 'manga'
Kyoto Seika University will offer a doctoral course on studies of Japanese "manga" comics in fiscal 2012, the private university in the city of Kyoto said Tuesday.
The university will be the first Japanese university to offer a doctorate in the subject, during which students will study the theory of manga making and actually produce manga, the university said, adding the course will allow for enrollment of four students.
German art scholar Jaqueline Berndt, manga artist Keiko Takemiya and other active authors and editors will give lectures as part of the planned doctoral course.
The university opened the manga department in 2000, the first of its kind in the country, and established a master's degree program in 2010.
The university decided to offer a doctoral program after receiving requests for such a program from its students, it said. It also took into consideration foreign students who asked for a valid degree in the subject.
The university will accept applications for the course between next Jan. 6 and 20. An entrance examination is slated for Feb. 7, the university said.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9NMTJN01&show_article=1
The university will be the first Japanese university to offer a doctorate in the subject, during which students will study the theory of manga making and actually produce manga, the university said, adding the course will allow for enrollment of four students.
German art scholar Jaqueline Berndt, manga artist Keiko Takemiya and other active authors and editors will give lectures as part of the planned doctoral course.
The university opened the manga department in 2000, the first of its kind in the country, and established a master's degree program in 2010.
The university decided to offer a doctoral program after receiving requests for such a program from its students, it said. It also took into consideration foreign students who asked for a valid degree in the subject.
The university will accept applications for the course between next Jan. 6 and 20. An entrance examination is slated for Feb. 7, the university said.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9NMTJN01&show_article=1
Visa perks eyed to lure foreigners
The government on Thursday outlined plans to give preferential treatment to foreigners with specialized skills to encourage them to work in Japan.
According to the Justice Ministry, the preferential treatment will be based on a point system that will allow visas of up to three years to be extended to five years. It will go into effect by the end of the year amid increasing international competition for competent human resources, especially engineers.
The points will be determined by checking annual income, work experience and other factors, with visa extensions or other preferential treatment given to those with a certain level of points.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110610a9.html
According to the Justice Ministry, the preferential treatment will be based on a point system that will allow visas of up to three years to be extended to five years. It will go into effect by the end of the year amid increasing international competition for competent human resources, especially engineers.
The points will be determined by checking annual income, work experience and other factors, with visa extensions or other preferential treatment given to those with a certain level of points.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110610a9.html
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Govt to ease visa rules to lure students
The government plans to ease the academic requirements for obtaining work visas, thereby making it easier for foreign graduates of Japanese vocational schools to work in this country, sources said Monday.
The move is aimed at attracting more foreigners to study in Japan, the sources said.
The Justice Ministry plans to revise the relevant ordinance shortly, with the new policy to be implemented in late June at the earliest.
Currently, work visas are in principle issued only to foreign nationals who hold a bachelor degree or higher.
Exceptions can be made for foreign students who stay in Japan and find jobs after graduating from Japanese vocational schools, but not if the students return to their home countries after graduation.
In 2009, the ministry conducted a survey of the employment histories of foreign students attending Japanese vocational schools, and found that about 70 percent of them would likely be able to find jobs in this nation.
Many foreigners attending Japanese vocational schools are believed to have returned home since the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, without applying for reentry permits. Relaxing the academic requirements for work visas could encourage such students to return to this country, the observers said.
According to a survey by the Japan Student Services Organization, there were 27,872 foreign students at Japanese vocational schools as of May last year.
It is hoped that relaxing the academic requirements could boost the number of foreign students who obtain work visas by more than 10,000 per year, the sources said.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110530004016.htm
The move is aimed at attracting more foreigners to study in Japan, the sources said.
The Justice Ministry plans to revise the relevant ordinance shortly, with the new policy to be implemented in late June at the earliest.
Currently, work visas are in principle issued only to foreign nationals who hold a bachelor degree or higher.
Exceptions can be made for foreign students who stay in Japan and find jobs after graduating from Japanese vocational schools, but not if the students return to their home countries after graduation.
In 2009, the ministry conducted a survey of the employment histories of foreign students attending Japanese vocational schools, and found that about 70 percent of them would likely be able to find jobs in this nation.
Many foreigners attending Japanese vocational schools are believed to have returned home since the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake, without applying for reentry permits. Relaxing the academic requirements for work visas could encourage such students to return to this country, the observers said.
According to a survey by the Japan Student Services Organization, there were 27,872 foreign students at Japanese vocational schools as of May last year.
It is hoped that relaxing the academic requirements could boost the number of foreign students who obtain work visas by more than 10,000 per year, the sources said.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110530004016.htm
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Foreign students targeted for tours
The Japan Tourism Agency will send some 1,100 foreign students in Japan to tourist spots across the country starting in July to check out the facilities, including hotels and inns, and find new attractions as it tries to lure back tourists scared off by the March 11 catastrophes.
The agency said Friday that it hopes the students will spread word online about the sites to ease concerns about the aftermath of the magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami and the radiation-spewing nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture for people abroad looking to visit Japan.
Travel, lodging and other expenses will be jointly shouldered by the government and any facilities that agree to accept the students. The agency plans to send 160 students to the disaster-hit Tohoku region.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110522b2.html
The agency said Friday that it hopes the students will spread word online about the sites to ease concerns about the aftermath of the magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami and the radiation-spewing nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture for people abroad looking to visit Japan.
Travel, lodging and other expenses will be jointly shouldered by the government and any facilities that agree to accept the students. The agency plans to send 160 students to the disaster-hit Tohoku region.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110522b2.html
Sunday, March 06, 2011
English big business, and growing
When it comes to preparing for the April launch of compulsory English classes in elementary schools, the private sector appears to have a clear lead over public school teachers.
"We kicked off our preliminary research group in the beginning of 2007," Mina Funabashi, who heads the English content management division for elementary school products at Benesse Corp., told The Japan Times.
The publishing giant offers monthly correspondence courses to a whopping 1.77 million children, or 1 out of every 4 elementary school students in Japan. Yet despite having supplied English textbooks for preteens since 1989, their syllabus needed an overhaul since the lessons were designed for introduction to junior high school English courses.
With the government setting a new objective to nurture English communication skills among fifth- and sixth-graders, Benesse gathered a number of university professors, English education experts and teachers from both private and public schools to come up with the perfect textbook. Their goal was simple but hard to achieve: to develop a syllabus that would improve English communication skills while cultivating basic language knowledge.
Whereas the previous textbooks were designed for junior high and required that students learn sentences by repeating them out loud five times, a completely different approach was needed to reach the new goal.
Nurturing children's interest in overseas cultures was also deemed "crucial for students to continue wanting to learn the language," Funabashi explained.
What Funabashi's team came up with is exquisite — a textbook that essentially bridges the gap between what interests elementary school children and what they need to learn, instilling in them not only a larger vocabulary but also cultural understanding and weaving the experience into a fabric of their English knowledge.
One chapter of the new textbook, for example, shows an American girl visiting Japan and trying wasabi-flavored potato chips. A Japanese boy warns that the chips are spicy, but the girl takes a bite anyway and is surprised by the zesty taste.
The story is accompanied by colorful manga of the scenes, but does not include any Japanese translations. On the next page, there are illustrations of cookies, chocolate, gum and popcorn to further augment vocabulary.
According to Funabashi, a trial edition of the textbook received mixed reviews from parents. They were worried that the vocabulary was too undemanding, and some were taken aback that the book didn't have the Japanese version of the conversation.
But that was exactly Benesse's goal — to grab kids' attention and implant new knowledge.
"It is said that there are approximately 1,200 (English terms) frequently used by an elementary school student in Japan" whose meanings are understood, Funabashi explained, such as potato chips, chocolate and popcorn. Those terms were used in the textbook on purpose to work as a "bridge," or to stand out and get a student to pay attention to English dialogue.
Because potato chips is an English phrase they are already familiar with, students are more likely to be able to connect the dots into a sentence. The conversation becomes comprehensible as they pick up the words they know and digest them, Funabashi said.
"They don't need to have a translation," Funabashi said, adding that in the long run, this nurtures the students' ability to absorb vast amounts of English and ultimately enable them to converse.
Benesse's new English textbooks have been in use by fifth-graders since April 2009. A survey by the company revealed that the number of pupils interested in the course is on the rise, even among those who score lower in school. Calls from mothers inquiring about English studies are also growing, Funabashi said.
"We tell them there is nothing to worry about with the upcoming change in English teaching. We are ready to answer the needs of our customers," said Kaori Sakamoto, a manager at Benesse's corporate communications department.
All systems are also go at ECC Junior, where approximately 200,000 elementary school pupils — more than any other language school — are enrolled. The chain operates about 10,000 classrooms across the country, and has expertise in teaching English to youngsters, some only 2 years old.
Kuniko Tsukada, deputy general division manager of ECC Junior, said tutors in the company have already undergone training to learn the new curriculum at public elementary schools.
Offering enjoyable classes with quizzes and story-reading has been and will remain a core part of the program, but ECC will push for what it calls teaching "global-standard English skills," or the required level of English for studying and working abroad by the time a student graduates from high school, she said.
"What stands out in our new program is the volume of reading and writing that a student goes through," Tsukada told The Japan Times. The company went this route after examining what interests most preteen elementary school children, ECC Junior said in a statement, explaining the idea behind its super-learning programs, which include extensive reading and writing.
The shift was an effort to maximize a student's exposure to new English expressions.
"Dancing and singing could work, but only for younger kids," Tsukada said. Instead, the sense of being able to communicate beyond illustrative sentences such as "I like apples" and "this is a pen" is what appeared to be most stimulating for the older students. ECC Junior concluded that it becomes essential for fifth- and sixth-graders to push themselves harder to acquire basic English skills, including learning more words and phrases.
That is how the Vocathlon program was developed in 2004. It has been effective in maximizing students' capabilities, ECC Junior said.
While previous vocabulary lessons involved teachers holding a drawing and students reciting the name of the item shown, the new method is operated in a completely different manner.
In the Vocathlon program, each student opens a page in a textbook where random items are illustrated, and then repeats the corresponding English term.
"Some fifth- and sixth-graders can go beyond 160 items, which is amazing because even an adult would have difficulty doing that," Tsukada said, adding that speed training and a rich vocabulary ultimately enhance English communication.
Many students surprise the teachers by going beyond their expectations, learning quickly once they are led in the right direction, she said.
"The new compulsory English classes will boost the number of people interested in learning English. In fact, we've been receiving a number of calls from mothers about our lessons," Tsukada said.
"I believe we are in the final stage of creating a system that can answer their needs."
Meanwhile, a growing number of children are taking the Eiken (Test in Practical English Proficiency) — Japan's most widely used English-language testing program.
More than 100,000 elementary school pupils took the tests in 1999 and the number rose to about 160,000 in 2009, according to the Society for Testing English Proficiency Inc., a nonprofit foundation in Tokyo that administers the tests.
Eiken's junior version — Jido Eiken — which stresses listening comprehension skills designed for young children, attracts around 90,000 takers a year, STEP said.
Many children start learning English at a young age, according to an October STEP survey of 215 Jido Eiken takers and 114 guardians. More than half of the takers started learning English before entering elementary school.
STEP said most elementary schools have already introduced foreign-language lessons, which may have prompted children to learn the language from an early stage.
STEP is also planning to publish free papers from May for elementary school teachers. The papers will offer content the teachers can use as reference, including what games to play and songs to sing in their English lessons.
"We hope these publications help foreign-language activities get conducted smoothly," said Mayuko Hamada, a STEP official. "And it will be good if students can graduate (from elementary school) and start junior high schools liking English."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110302f1.html?
"We kicked off our preliminary research group in the beginning of 2007," Mina Funabashi, who heads the English content management division for elementary school products at Benesse Corp., told The Japan Times.
The publishing giant offers monthly correspondence courses to a whopping 1.77 million children, or 1 out of every 4 elementary school students in Japan. Yet despite having supplied English textbooks for preteens since 1989, their syllabus needed an overhaul since the lessons were designed for introduction to junior high school English courses.
With the government setting a new objective to nurture English communication skills among fifth- and sixth-graders, Benesse gathered a number of university professors, English education experts and teachers from both private and public schools to come up with the perfect textbook. Their goal was simple but hard to achieve: to develop a syllabus that would improve English communication skills while cultivating basic language knowledge.
Whereas the previous textbooks were designed for junior high and required that students learn sentences by repeating them out loud five times, a completely different approach was needed to reach the new goal.
Nurturing children's interest in overseas cultures was also deemed "crucial for students to continue wanting to learn the language," Funabashi explained.
What Funabashi's team came up with is exquisite — a textbook that essentially bridges the gap between what interests elementary school children and what they need to learn, instilling in them not only a larger vocabulary but also cultural understanding and weaving the experience into a fabric of their English knowledge.
One chapter of the new textbook, for example, shows an American girl visiting Japan and trying wasabi-flavored potato chips. A Japanese boy warns that the chips are spicy, but the girl takes a bite anyway and is surprised by the zesty taste.
The story is accompanied by colorful manga of the scenes, but does not include any Japanese translations. On the next page, there are illustrations of cookies, chocolate, gum and popcorn to further augment vocabulary.
According to Funabashi, a trial edition of the textbook received mixed reviews from parents. They were worried that the vocabulary was too undemanding, and some were taken aback that the book didn't have the Japanese version of the conversation.
But that was exactly Benesse's goal — to grab kids' attention and implant new knowledge.
"It is said that there are approximately 1,200 (English terms) frequently used by an elementary school student in Japan" whose meanings are understood, Funabashi explained, such as potato chips, chocolate and popcorn. Those terms were used in the textbook on purpose to work as a "bridge," or to stand out and get a student to pay attention to English dialogue.
Because potato chips is an English phrase they are already familiar with, students are more likely to be able to connect the dots into a sentence. The conversation becomes comprehensible as they pick up the words they know and digest them, Funabashi said.
"They don't need to have a translation," Funabashi said, adding that in the long run, this nurtures the students' ability to absorb vast amounts of English and ultimately enable them to converse.
Benesse's new English textbooks have been in use by fifth-graders since April 2009. A survey by the company revealed that the number of pupils interested in the course is on the rise, even among those who score lower in school. Calls from mothers inquiring about English studies are also growing, Funabashi said.
"We tell them there is nothing to worry about with the upcoming change in English teaching. We are ready to answer the needs of our customers," said Kaori Sakamoto, a manager at Benesse's corporate communications department.
All systems are also go at ECC Junior, where approximately 200,000 elementary school pupils — more than any other language school — are enrolled. The chain operates about 10,000 classrooms across the country, and has expertise in teaching English to youngsters, some only 2 years old.
Kuniko Tsukada, deputy general division manager of ECC Junior, said tutors in the company have already undergone training to learn the new curriculum at public elementary schools.
Offering enjoyable classes with quizzes and story-reading has been and will remain a core part of the program, but ECC will push for what it calls teaching "global-standard English skills," or the required level of English for studying and working abroad by the time a student graduates from high school, she said.
"What stands out in our new program is the volume of reading and writing that a student goes through," Tsukada told The Japan Times. The company went this route after examining what interests most preteen elementary school children, ECC Junior said in a statement, explaining the idea behind its super-learning programs, which include extensive reading and writing.
The shift was an effort to maximize a student's exposure to new English expressions.
"Dancing and singing could work, but only for younger kids," Tsukada said. Instead, the sense of being able to communicate beyond illustrative sentences such as "I like apples" and "this is a pen" is what appeared to be most stimulating for the older students. ECC Junior concluded that it becomes essential for fifth- and sixth-graders to push themselves harder to acquire basic English skills, including learning more words and phrases.
That is how the Vocathlon program was developed in 2004. It has been effective in maximizing students' capabilities, ECC Junior said.
While previous vocabulary lessons involved teachers holding a drawing and students reciting the name of the item shown, the new method is operated in a completely different manner.
In the Vocathlon program, each student opens a page in a textbook where random items are illustrated, and then repeats the corresponding English term.
"Some fifth- and sixth-graders can go beyond 160 items, which is amazing because even an adult would have difficulty doing that," Tsukada said, adding that speed training and a rich vocabulary ultimately enhance English communication.
Many students surprise the teachers by going beyond their expectations, learning quickly once they are led in the right direction, she said.
"The new compulsory English classes will boost the number of people interested in learning English. In fact, we've been receiving a number of calls from mothers about our lessons," Tsukada said.
"I believe we are in the final stage of creating a system that can answer their needs."
Meanwhile, a growing number of children are taking the Eiken (Test in Practical English Proficiency) — Japan's most widely used English-language testing program.
More than 100,000 elementary school pupils took the tests in 1999 and the number rose to about 160,000 in 2009, according to the Society for Testing English Proficiency Inc., a nonprofit foundation in Tokyo that administers the tests.
Eiken's junior version — Jido Eiken — which stresses listening comprehension skills designed for young children, attracts around 90,000 takers a year, STEP said.
Many children start learning English at a young age, according to an October STEP survey of 215 Jido Eiken takers and 114 guardians. More than half of the takers started learning English before entering elementary school.
STEP said most elementary schools have already introduced foreign-language lessons, which may have prompted children to learn the language from an early stage.
STEP is also planning to publish free papers from May for elementary school teachers. The papers will offer content the teachers can use as reference, including what games to play and songs to sing in their English lessons.
"We hope these publications help foreign-language activities get conducted smoothly," said Mayuko Hamada, a STEP official. "And it will be good if students can graduate (from elementary school) and start junior high schools liking English."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110302f1.html?
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
IUJ Offers Smart Phone App Course
n the 2011 Spring Term (April-June), Graduate School of International Management (GSIM) at the International University of Japan (IUJ) will offer a course to introduce developing business applications (Apps) for smart phones based on iPhone/iPad Operating System.
Commenting on this course, Dean Philip Sugai said "This course is another great opportunity for our business school to provide our students with the most up to date and forward thinking skills for new business challenges, and as far as our research can uncover, we are the first business school in Japan to do so."
The course titled "Business Apps with iPhone/iPad/iPod" will be listed under the E-Business Management Program. A new lab has been set up now with Apple machines with WiFi capabilities inside the E-Lab. The course with practical lab environment will be taught by Prof. Jay Rajasekera (Professor of Management Systems and Strategy, formally a researcher at the AT&T Bell Laboratories) and Dr. Zaw Zaw Aung (Doctor of Engineering in Information Science, Nagaoka University of Technology). IUJ joins such prominent schools as Stanford University in the US to offer this kind of course in a business school curriculum. Response to this new course is very positive, with the registration already exceeding the capacity as of March 1.
http://www.japancorp.net/Article.Asp?Art_ID=23730
Commenting on this course, Dean Philip Sugai said "This course is another great opportunity for our business school to provide our students with the most up to date and forward thinking skills for new business challenges, and as far as our research can uncover, we are the first business school in Japan to do so."
The course titled "Business Apps with iPhone/iPad/iPod" will be listed under the E-Business Management Program. A new lab has been set up now with Apple machines with WiFi capabilities inside the E-Lab. The course with practical lab environment will be taught by Prof. Jay Rajasekera (Professor of Management Systems and Strategy, formally a researcher at the AT&T Bell Laboratories) and Dr. Zaw Zaw Aung (Doctor of Engineering in Information Science, Nagaoka University of Technology). IUJ joins such prominent schools as Stanford University in the US to offer this kind of course in a business school curriculum. Response to this new course is very positive, with the registration already exceeding the capacity as of March 1.
http://www.japancorp.net/Article.Asp?Art_ID=23730
Monday, February 28, 2011
Are schools ready for English?
Come April, English classes will become mandatory for fifth- and sixth-graders, but a 29-year-old elementary school teacher in Tokyo has heard the concerns of her overwhelmed colleagues, especially the older ones, who have neither taught the language nor studied it since their university years decades ago.
Preparing for the English classes is a new burden for teachers. Some believe they must teach detailed rules of grammar and demonstrate proper pronunciation, even though this isn't required.
"Many teachers are considerably repulsed. They feel they can't make mistakes and fear they may speak incorrect English" during the lessons, said the Tokyo teacher, who did not want her name used.
Starting with fiscal 2011, the government will require all elementary schools to introduce compulsory foreign-language lessons — basically English — for fifth- and sixth-graders. All kids in this age group will have at least one lesson per week.
While many parents and other Japanese welcome the government's move to provide English education at an early age, some experts are concerned that most teachers are being forced to venture into uncharted waters with little preparation. In addition, devoting just one period a week to English won't be near enough to nurture children's language ability.
"With one lesson a week, it's like pouring water onto a desert. It will immediately evaporate — not create an oasis," said Haruo Erikawa, an English-education professor of Wakayama University.
Japan has lagged behind its neighboring countries in introducing English lessons at an early age, and its impact is obvious in various statistics.
TOEFL data for 2004-2005 put Japan next to last in Asia, with an average score of only 191 points — just one point higher than North Korea. Afghanistan exceeded Japan by seven points, while Singapore had the top score at 254.
"To further internationalize the Japanese people and nurture human resources who can work competently in international society, it is necessary to bolster English education as a national strategy," the education ministry said in a 2006 report on the language.
English education has long been mandatory in junior high schools, but such classes are not totally new to a majority of elementary schools because of the "integrated learning class" concept, which was introduced in 1998.
Though this class was not specifically designed for learning foreign languages, many elementary schools decided to use it for English conversation lessons. In fiscal 2009, 97.8 percent of elementary schools nationwide were planning to have language lessons for fifth- and sixth-graders, the education ministry said.
Owing to the lack of a unified English teaching program at the elementary school level, gaps in quality among regions emerged as some schools offer two to three lessons per week, while at other schools they are much more infrequent. The material being taught also varies, with some schools teaching the alphabet and others providing opportunities to speak with native English speakers.
To narrow these disparities, the ministry introduced a uniform curriculum. The move appears to have wide support.
According to a nationwide survey in December conducted by the Japan Public Opinion Survey Association, 87 percent of 1,924 adults supported compulsory English education for fifth- and sixth-graders.
Education ministry officials stressed that the new English lessons, Gaikokugo Katsudo (Foreign Language Activities), will be different from English lessons at the junior high level, and students won't be drilled on comprehensive grammar rules or vocabulary.
The goal of the new program is to help children experience and understand other languages and cultures, motivate them to actively communicate with foreigners and become familiar with the sounds and basic expressions of another language, the ministry says.
It already distributed teaching materials called Eigo Note (English Notes), as well as CDs and other supplemental instruction materials, to teachers and students nationwide. Eigo Note includes lessons in greetings, games, self-introduction and town guides.
Despite high expectations among the public and government officials, some experts and teachers say the curriculum is full of problems that need to be fixed.
To begin with, many argue that training for teachers is far from sufficient.
According to a survey last July and August by the think tank Benesse Educational Research and Development Center on 4,709 elementary school teachers nationwide, 68.1 percent of classroom teachers said they don't have much confidence or they have no confidence in teaching English.
A 27-year-old male teacher at an elementary school in Kanagawa Prefecture said many teachers aren't yet at the stage where they can comfortably teach the language.
The teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said one of his colleagues told him he was afraid of giving lessons with his broken English, while another pointed out the possibility that this will merely cause children to dislike English.
To help teachers, the education ministry has put together a guideline and offered a training program since fiscal 2007.
The ministry and other specialists teach education officials at the prefectural level how to proceed with lessons. Those officials then train representatives from each school. Both training programs last about five days. After that, the representatives of each school are supposed to train their colleagues for a total of around 30 hours over a two-year period.
However, the survey by Benesse suggests the reality has turned out rather different.
According to the survey, classroom teachers received an average of 6.8 hours of training at their schools between April 2009 and last August, and more than 20 percent said they participated in "zero" hours of training.
On problems that they face, 57.9 percent of curriculum coordinators said the time is very limited for developing teaching materials and preparing for lessons.
More than 75 percent of curriculum coordinators even suggested English should be taught in classrooms by specialist instructors.
Wakayama University's Erikawa said it is hard for many schoolteachers to teach English because they haven't studied the language in a long time.
"For example, the average age of elementary school teachers in Osaka is around 50. This means they haven't used English for almost 30 years since graduating from university," he said.
According to Erikawa, this isn't the first attempt at teaching English at the elementary school level. English lessons were introduced around the middle of the Meiji Era (1868-1912) at some elementary schools. But the poor ability of the teachers at that level led to junior high school teachers saying the elementary school curriculum was worthless and should be abolished.
"I am extremely worried (that) we will repeat the same mistake," he said.
Although there are many hurdles to overcome, teachers have to face reality and move forward. And experts suggest more can be done in the long term.
Mitsue Allen-Tamai, an English-education professor at Aoyama Gakuin University, said the government should eventually introduce English education in earlier grades as young children can easily recognize and learn the unfamiliar sounds of a foreign language.
Frequency of lessons should also be increased to at least three times a week and more material should be taught so children won't panic when they get to junior high, where the curriculum is heavier, she said.
The government should continue to work harder to reinforce English education at public schools so there won't be a wider gap in English proficiency among children, she added.
"Otherwise, while rich kids can get sufficient (English) education, those who are not will be left out," she said.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110226f1.html
Preparing for the English classes is a new burden for teachers. Some believe they must teach detailed rules of grammar and demonstrate proper pronunciation, even though this isn't required.
"Many teachers are considerably repulsed. They feel they can't make mistakes and fear they may speak incorrect English" during the lessons, said the Tokyo teacher, who did not want her name used.
Starting with fiscal 2011, the government will require all elementary schools to introduce compulsory foreign-language lessons — basically English — for fifth- and sixth-graders. All kids in this age group will have at least one lesson per week.
While many parents and other Japanese welcome the government's move to provide English education at an early age, some experts are concerned that most teachers are being forced to venture into uncharted waters with little preparation. In addition, devoting just one period a week to English won't be near enough to nurture children's language ability.
"With one lesson a week, it's like pouring water onto a desert. It will immediately evaporate — not create an oasis," said Haruo Erikawa, an English-education professor of Wakayama University.
Japan has lagged behind its neighboring countries in introducing English lessons at an early age, and its impact is obvious in various statistics.
TOEFL data for 2004-2005 put Japan next to last in Asia, with an average score of only 191 points — just one point higher than North Korea. Afghanistan exceeded Japan by seven points, while Singapore had the top score at 254.
"To further internationalize the Japanese people and nurture human resources who can work competently in international society, it is necessary to bolster English education as a national strategy," the education ministry said in a 2006 report on the language.
English education has long been mandatory in junior high schools, but such classes are not totally new to a majority of elementary schools because of the "integrated learning class" concept, which was introduced in 1998.
Though this class was not specifically designed for learning foreign languages, many elementary schools decided to use it for English conversation lessons. In fiscal 2009, 97.8 percent of elementary schools nationwide were planning to have language lessons for fifth- and sixth-graders, the education ministry said.
Owing to the lack of a unified English teaching program at the elementary school level, gaps in quality among regions emerged as some schools offer two to three lessons per week, while at other schools they are much more infrequent. The material being taught also varies, with some schools teaching the alphabet and others providing opportunities to speak with native English speakers.
To narrow these disparities, the ministry introduced a uniform curriculum. The move appears to have wide support.
According to a nationwide survey in December conducted by the Japan Public Opinion Survey Association, 87 percent of 1,924 adults supported compulsory English education for fifth- and sixth-graders.
Education ministry officials stressed that the new English lessons, Gaikokugo Katsudo (Foreign Language Activities), will be different from English lessons at the junior high level, and students won't be drilled on comprehensive grammar rules or vocabulary.
The goal of the new program is to help children experience and understand other languages and cultures, motivate them to actively communicate with foreigners and become familiar with the sounds and basic expressions of another language, the ministry says.
It already distributed teaching materials called Eigo Note (English Notes), as well as CDs and other supplemental instruction materials, to teachers and students nationwide. Eigo Note includes lessons in greetings, games, self-introduction and town guides.
Despite high expectations among the public and government officials, some experts and teachers say the curriculum is full of problems that need to be fixed.
To begin with, many argue that training for teachers is far from sufficient.
According to a survey last July and August by the think tank Benesse Educational Research and Development Center on 4,709 elementary school teachers nationwide, 68.1 percent of classroom teachers said they don't have much confidence or they have no confidence in teaching English.
A 27-year-old male teacher at an elementary school in Kanagawa Prefecture said many teachers aren't yet at the stage where they can comfortably teach the language.
The teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said one of his colleagues told him he was afraid of giving lessons with his broken English, while another pointed out the possibility that this will merely cause children to dislike English.
To help teachers, the education ministry has put together a guideline and offered a training program since fiscal 2007.
The ministry and other specialists teach education officials at the prefectural level how to proceed with lessons. Those officials then train representatives from each school. Both training programs last about five days. After that, the representatives of each school are supposed to train their colleagues for a total of around 30 hours over a two-year period.
However, the survey by Benesse suggests the reality has turned out rather different.
According to the survey, classroom teachers received an average of 6.8 hours of training at their schools between April 2009 and last August, and more than 20 percent said they participated in "zero" hours of training.
On problems that they face, 57.9 percent of curriculum coordinators said the time is very limited for developing teaching materials and preparing for lessons.
More than 75 percent of curriculum coordinators even suggested English should be taught in classrooms by specialist instructors.
Wakayama University's Erikawa said it is hard for many schoolteachers to teach English because they haven't studied the language in a long time.
"For example, the average age of elementary school teachers in Osaka is around 50. This means they haven't used English for almost 30 years since graduating from university," he said.
According to Erikawa, this isn't the first attempt at teaching English at the elementary school level. English lessons were introduced around the middle of the Meiji Era (1868-1912) at some elementary schools. But the poor ability of the teachers at that level led to junior high school teachers saying the elementary school curriculum was worthless and should be abolished.
"I am extremely worried (that) we will repeat the same mistake," he said.
Although there are many hurdles to overcome, teachers have to face reality and move forward. And experts suggest more can be done in the long term.
Mitsue Allen-Tamai, an English-education professor at Aoyama Gakuin University, said the government should eventually introduce English education in earlier grades as young children can easily recognize and learn the unfamiliar sounds of a foreign language.
Frequency of lessons should also be increased to at least three times a week and more material should be taught so children won't panic when they get to junior high, where the curriculum is heavier, she said.
The government should continue to work harder to reinforce English education at public schools so there won't be a wider gap in English proficiency among children, she added.
"Otherwise, while rich kids can get sufficient (English) education, those who are not will be left out," she said.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110226f1.html
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Lin Kobayashi explains that in the high school that she attended in Canada, in the early 1990s, there were 86 different nationalities represented in her year alone. Needless to say, Japan has no schools that could compete in terms of diversity, even today. But, if the 36-year-old Tokyo native gets her way, that situation might be about to change.
Kobayashi is part of a small but well-connected group of people working toward the establishment of a fully residential, international senior high school in the mountain-top resort town of Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture. At present, they are finalizing the purchase of a suitable plot of land and are hoping to open what will be called the International School of Asia, Karuizawa, in 2013.
"One key difference to the usual Japanese schools will be that the new school will offer the International Baccalaureate," Kobayashi told The Japan Times late last month. "All the classes will be held in English."
With English fluency, graduates of the new school will be grounded in an essential tool of international communication, Kobayashi believes, but there is another, even more important skill that she hopes to instill: the ability to lead.
"In Japan, when people talk of leadership, they tend to imagine someone who is very extroverted, a bit arrogant — someone who is really out there," Kobayashi said. "But I think it is more complex than that. The task of a school is to help children identify their own strengths, to build their self confidence. And if you can achieve that, then you are giving every student the chance to become a leader in their respective fields."
In order to teach this kind of leadership, Kobayashi believes it is necessary to make the school fully residential, so that all the students live together.
"Leadership is something that can't be taught in the classroom," Kobayashi explained. "The school I went to in Canada was a boarding school, and it gave us the chance to interact as groups and in a range of contexts."
Kobayashi's alma mater, United World College, a secular school with branches dotted around the world, is serving as a model in another aspect too. "When we were at school we were way out on Vancouver Island," Kobayashi said. "There was nothing else to do around there, so we interacted with nature and we studied."
She believes the small town of Karuizawa, which was adopted as a resort town in the late 19th century by Christian missionaries, will provide similarly beneficial isolation.
The plan, which envisions the creation of a school offering three years of senior high school tuition, with about 50 students in each year, has been funded largely by private donations to date. A foundation has been established to pursue the plan, and it boasts an advisory board positively bristling with corporate muscle — Nobuyuki Idei, the former CEO of Sony, for example.
Kobayashi's key partner in the project is hedge-fund manager Mamoru Tamiya, who is currently sending his children to existing international schools in Japan, but would prefer they went to a school offering even more diversity and a more clearly defined Japanese identity.
"The curriculum of the new school will include not only classes on Japanese language but also in Japanese culture and arts," explained Kobayashi. Emphasis will also be placed on creative thinking and design.
Kobayashi has scoured the globe to get leading educators involved in building the school's curriculum. Many of them have been helping out at summer school programs that have been organized for the last two summers in preparation for the school's opening. Last year, Jim Masker, a history teacher from the independent, residential Cate School in southern California, attended, along with others such as Vancouver School Board teacher Kelley Hishon.
A fter graduating from United World College in 1993, Kobayashi returned to Japan to attend the University of Tokyo. She joined the Japan Bank for International Cooperation after she graduated, and then spent two years at the United Nations Children's Fund.
"I spent a lot of time working on non-formal education programs for street children in the Philippines," she recalled. "The kids had to work during the day, so we'd put up notes around the town saying things like, 'We will do a basic literacy class here in the corner of this park tonight. . . . The kids were so keen to learn once they were given the chance."
But, Kobayashi gradually started to realize that while she could affect change on a small scale, more fundamental change would require improvements in local leadership.
"The people in leadership positions in those countries — in both politics and business, too — needed to be given education covering ethical mindsets and values," she said. Kobayashi decided she needed to build a school that would educate the next generation of leaders for Asia.
Kobayashi is keen to point out that the new school will not cater exclusively to children of affluent families. The projected school fees stand at ¥2.5 million for tuition and ¥1 million for boarding fees. But, she says, full scholarships will be offered to a quarter of all students and partial scholarships will be offered to a further quarter.
Furthermore, 30 to 40 percent of all students will be from Asian countries other than Japan.
"The school I attended in Canada was a full-scholarship school. Everyone was on scholarships, and that meant that you had not only diversity of nationality, but diversity of socio-economic background, too," she explained. "I was at school with kids from Lesotho and my best friends were from Mexico and Nicaragua. It really opened my eyes to how lucky I was, how much I had taken for granted as a member of the normal, lower-middle class in Japan. That was the time I really became interested in the power of education."
When asked what challenges remained before her planned school could become a reality, Kobayashi explained that completing the purchase of a plot of land would be a key step. "A lot of our donors have pledged money, but they want to see the land — and that's natural," she said. "When we get that done, hopefully by March, then things will start to progress more swiftly."
In the meantime, Kobayashi is working on this year's summer camp. "Bringing kids together in Karuizawa for the summer camps really gives you a clear picture of the school's potential," she explained. Last year she arranged for some students to attend from Myanmar and the Philippines — all on scholarships. And she was touched by what happened as a result. "At the end of the program some of the Japanese students came up to me and said they had been so inspired to hear about the lives of the Philippine students that they wanted to learn Tagalog."
Applications for the International School of Asia, Karuizawa, Summer Camp 2011 are currently being taken. Children in grades eight through 10 as of Sept. 1, 2011, are eligible. Fees are ¥220,000 and, as always, full and partial scholarships are available. See isak.jp/en/ for details
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fs20110217a3.html
Kobayashi is part of a small but well-connected group of people working toward the establishment of a fully residential, international senior high school in the mountain-top resort town of Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture. At present, they are finalizing the purchase of a suitable plot of land and are hoping to open what will be called the International School of Asia, Karuizawa, in 2013.
"One key difference to the usual Japanese schools will be that the new school will offer the International Baccalaureate," Kobayashi told The Japan Times late last month. "All the classes will be held in English."
With English fluency, graduates of the new school will be grounded in an essential tool of international communication, Kobayashi believes, but there is another, even more important skill that she hopes to instill: the ability to lead.
"In Japan, when people talk of leadership, they tend to imagine someone who is very extroverted, a bit arrogant — someone who is really out there," Kobayashi said. "But I think it is more complex than that. The task of a school is to help children identify their own strengths, to build their self confidence. And if you can achieve that, then you are giving every student the chance to become a leader in their respective fields."
In order to teach this kind of leadership, Kobayashi believes it is necessary to make the school fully residential, so that all the students live together.
"Leadership is something that can't be taught in the classroom," Kobayashi explained. "The school I went to in Canada was a boarding school, and it gave us the chance to interact as groups and in a range of contexts."
Kobayashi's alma mater, United World College, a secular school with branches dotted around the world, is serving as a model in another aspect too. "When we were at school we were way out on Vancouver Island," Kobayashi said. "There was nothing else to do around there, so we interacted with nature and we studied."
She believes the small town of Karuizawa, which was adopted as a resort town in the late 19th century by Christian missionaries, will provide similarly beneficial isolation.
The plan, which envisions the creation of a school offering three years of senior high school tuition, with about 50 students in each year, has been funded largely by private donations to date. A foundation has been established to pursue the plan, and it boasts an advisory board positively bristling with corporate muscle — Nobuyuki Idei, the former CEO of Sony, for example.
Kobayashi's key partner in the project is hedge-fund manager Mamoru Tamiya, who is currently sending his children to existing international schools in Japan, but would prefer they went to a school offering even more diversity and a more clearly defined Japanese identity.
"The curriculum of the new school will include not only classes on Japanese language but also in Japanese culture and arts," explained Kobayashi. Emphasis will also be placed on creative thinking and design.
Kobayashi has scoured the globe to get leading educators involved in building the school's curriculum. Many of them have been helping out at summer school programs that have been organized for the last two summers in preparation for the school's opening. Last year, Jim Masker, a history teacher from the independent, residential Cate School in southern California, attended, along with others such as Vancouver School Board teacher Kelley Hishon.
A fter graduating from United World College in 1993, Kobayashi returned to Japan to attend the University of Tokyo. She joined the Japan Bank for International Cooperation after she graduated, and then spent two years at the United Nations Children's Fund.
"I spent a lot of time working on non-formal education programs for street children in the Philippines," she recalled. "The kids had to work during the day, so we'd put up notes around the town saying things like, 'We will do a basic literacy class here in the corner of this park tonight. . . . The kids were so keen to learn once they were given the chance."
But, Kobayashi gradually started to realize that while she could affect change on a small scale, more fundamental change would require improvements in local leadership.
"The people in leadership positions in those countries — in both politics and business, too — needed to be given education covering ethical mindsets and values," she said. Kobayashi decided she needed to build a school that would educate the next generation of leaders for Asia.
Kobayashi is keen to point out that the new school will not cater exclusively to children of affluent families. The projected school fees stand at ¥2.5 million for tuition and ¥1 million for boarding fees. But, she says, full scholarships will be offered to a quarter of all students and partial scholarships will be offered to a further quarter.
Furthermore, 30 to 40 percent of all students will be from Asian countries other than Japan.
"The school I attended in Canada was a full-scholarship school. Everyone was on scholarships, and that meant that you had not only diversity of nationality, but diversity of socio-economic background, too," she explained. "I was at school with kids from Lesotho and my best friends were from Mexico and Nicaragua. It really opened my eyes to how lucky I was, how much I had taken for granted as a member of the normal, lower-middle class in Japan. That was the time I really became interested in the power of education."
When asked what challenges remained before her planned school could become a reality, Kobayashi explained that completing the purchase of a plot of land would be a key step. "A lot of our donors have pledged money, but they want to see the land — and that's natural," she said. "When we get that done, hopefully by March, then things will start to progress more swiftly."
In the meantime, Kobayashi is working on this year's summer camp. "Bringing kids together in Karuizawa for the summer camps really gives you a clear picture of the school's potential," she explained. Last year she arranged for some students to attend from Myanmar and the Philippines — all on scholarships. And she was touched by what happened as a result. "At the end of the program some of the Japanese students came up to me and said they had been so inspired to hear about the lives of the Philippine students that they wanted to learn Tagalog."
Applications for the International School of Asia, Karuizawa, Summer Camp 2011 are currently being taken. Children in grades eight through 10 as of Sept. 1, 2011, are eligible. Fees are ¥220,000 and, as always, full and partial scholarships are available. See isak.jp/en/ for details
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fs20110217a3.html
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Special Report: Can Japan's spirited youth save their aging nation?
A graduate of the prestigious University of Tokyo's economics department, Keishiro Kurabayashi could have joined a blue-chip firm and begun climbing the corporate ladder. Instead, he interned at DeNA, then a fledgling start-up and now a successful social networking and mobile gaming firm.
"I thought it was like a rule - I would graduate from Tokyo University, enter a foreign consulting firm and after years of study might be ready to start my own firm," said the 29-year-old. "The people at DeNA were really smart, but they weren't caught up with rules, and that was fun.
"That was a big turning point for me," said Kurabayashi, who now runs his own firm.
Kurabayashi is one of Japan's "20-something" generation: many born during a heady "bubble economy" they can't recall, coming of age in an era of sliding national status and eyeing retirement when, many predict, the country's economic sun will have set.
The fracturing of the post-World War Two system that propelled Japan's economy to the No. 2 global spot -- a status now lost to China -- has pushed many of his cohorts to seek security by trying to cling to what remains. But for many others, the uncertainty itself is giving birth to a do-it-yourself mindset that could generate welcome dynamism.
"If we expect the country to take care of us, we may end up not being able to make a living," says Megumi Kawashima, 27, a website designer and one of Japan's legions of "otaku" fans of comics and video games. "We should be sensible enough to know we need to take care of ourselves," added Kawashima, who creates manga comics -- illustrated in a distinctive Japanese style and popular around the world -- under the pen name K Ayuhara.
For now, these DIY youth appear to be a minority, whose voice has been drowned out by a drumbeat of reports about Japanese youth's generally passive response to a dismal future. But experts say their ranks will grow as traditional corporate and social systems crumble further.
"On the one hand, you have young people who are taking matters into their own hands in the face of companies and a government who have little to offer them in return," said Yasuo Suwa, a professor at Hosei University's graduate school.
"But on the other hand, you have young people who are looking for an easy way out, seeking shelters that are fast disappearing," Suwa said. "It will be slow, but I think there will be more gutsy young people going forward."
DAUNTING DEMOGRAPHICS
The macro-economic and demographic trends confronting Japan's youth are indeed daunting.
Japan's public debt has risen to about twice the size of its $5 trillion economy from about half of gross domestic product in 1980, and is forecast to near 250 percent in 2015. Credit rating agency Standard and Poor's in January downgraded its rating on Japan's sovereign debt to AA minus from AA, warning that Japan's government debt would keep rising and citing political deadlock as a concern.
Nearly one in four Japanese are now aged 65 or over, with the figure expected to reach 40 percent by 2050. The economy has been mired in mild deflation for most of the past decade.
The aging of Japan is forcing politicians to face up to the need to raise a 5 percent sales tax to finance bulging pension and health-care costs, breaking a long-time political taboo. Social-security spending could reach more than 28.7 trillion yen ($351 billion) in the next fiscal year beginning in April, accounting for a third of the overall budget.
But while many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree higher taxes are unavoidable, struggling Prime Minister Naoto Kan is having little success luring feisty opposition parties to the table to discuss specific reforms.
Twenty-something Japanese interviewed by Reuters, from bureaucrats and career women to a long-haired nationalist and a radish farmer, know they face a less secure future in a system in which fewer than two workers will be supporting one retiree by 2030, from three now.
"Japan's fiscal state is like a ticking bomb," said Hiromi, 26, who joined the elite finance ministry after watching a banking crisis unfold in the 1990s when he was a student. "As I think about having a child in the future and wonder what his or her future will be like, I want to do something to fix the situation," added Hiromi, who asked to be identified only by his first name so he could speak more freely.
But few 20-somethings expect the government to do much to fix Japan's problems or secure their future. A survey of college students conducted last year by fund manager Fidelity International showed that 65 percent were pessimistic about Japan's future -- and an equal percentage believed they would have to rely on their own assets and savings in their old age, more than pensions.
Youth are keenly aware of China's lengthening shadow as their giant neighbor bumps Japan out of its No. 2 global economic ranking, though many seem little phased by Tokyo's relative decline.
"China had long been leading Japan in national might except for the past 100 years or so," says Tsunehira Furuya, 28, whose shoulder-length bleached hair makes him look more like a pop singer than the conservative political activist he is.
"China getting ahead of Japan economically is sort of a return to the historical norm, and that does not bother me."
CRUMBLING CORPORATE COCOON
Japan's relative loss of global status may be inevitable given demographics and the maturity of its economy. But a growing self-reliance and willingness to take risks could translate into a less gloomy future than many predict.
"If you know that the best and the brightest only go to GM or Ford, all the other places that could innovate don't," said Brian Heywood, CEO of Taiyo Pacific Partners, which has about $2 billion invested in Japanese shares. If it is no longer the case that they only go to Toyota or Sony ... you could have real dynamism in the economy," he said.
"It doesn't happen overnight."
For now, many youth seem to be seeking an elusive security, an attitude scoffed at by members of the DIY tribe.
"Japanese in general these days are really spoiled and not ambitious, and just happy enough with what they are or what they have," says Juri Imamura, 28, who got a graduate degree in New York before taking a job at a Japanese e-commerce firm with aggressive overseas plans. "They aren't 'hungry'."
Surveys of university students by publishing and human resources firm Recruit Co. Ltd show a steady increase since 2005 in the percentage of those wanting to spend their entire career at the first company that hires them, rising to around 80 percent as the economy faltered last year. early half of new hires don't want to work overseas, many worrying that it is "too risky", another Recruit survey showed.
"They are satisfied with the present situation in Japan," said Yukio Okubo, general manager at the Works Institute research arm of Recruit.
But with Japan's famed life-time employment system crumbling to be replaced by a labor force where one-third of workers have unstable jobs with uncertain benefits, chances today's youth can live out their lives in a secure corporate cocoon are shrinking.
While only about one in four Japanese aged 15-34 in a 2009 government survey said they wanted to change jobs before retirement, in fact, just over half the age group had already done so -- compared to about one-third in the 1997 survey.
"I think of a company as a place that provides me with challenges and where I can build networks and develop my skills," Imamura said. "So if my ideas and the corporate direction don't match, naturally I would consider leaving."
Youth unemployment is stuck near record highs at around 10 percent. That's low compared to many other advanced countries, but alarming for students faced with hiring practices that mean they may get only one shot at a full-time job after graduating.
The gloomy outlook, however, has a silver lining.
"It used to be nonsense for someone to start a business because it was so risky, but now, because they can't get good employment opportunities, the risk is lower," said Naohiro Yashiro, a professor at International Christian University in Tokyo and former member of a government advisory panel.
"You can't find this in survey data because the majority is still sticking to the traditional model of getting jobs in big companies or government ... so you can only find anecdotal evidence," Yashiro said.
"Currently, we are in a transitional phase," adds Yashiro, who says greater willingness to start businesses or switch jobs can boost Japan's flagging productivity through a better allocation of resources.
BUSINESS CULTURE
After his stint at DeNa, Kurabayashi, set up Imio Corp with a band of former schoolmates and soccer buddies five years ago. The firm has already made it further than many Japanese startups, with $2 million in annual sales of colorful soccer and futsal balls made in Pakistan.
Embarking on a new challenge or proposing something new is often met with skepticism," Kurabayashi says. "In places like Silicon Valley, people will react positively to almost anything you propose. Things could change for Japan in an atmosphere like that -- in business and in politics."
Critics say making room for more people like Kurabaysahi, though, requires changing a business culture that has long been less than encouraging to risk-takers.
"Japan has to do something about its entrepreneurial opportunities, and that's all wound up in tax policies and government regulations," Taiyo Pacific's Heywood said during one of his monthly visits to Japan from his home base in Kirkland, Washington.
"This society squeezes entrepreneurs; it doesn't embrace them."
Entrepreneurs, in fact, got a black eye with the public from Takafumi Horie, the founder of Internet portal Livedoor Co, who turned a $50,000 startup into a $6 billion conglomerate and was then arrested and convicted of fraud. He is appealing.
"What could change things is ... if you got a mainstream Japanese guy who was a successful entrepreneur," Heywood said. "Horie could have been that, but he was pushing the system and the system smashed him hard."
Among the institutional barriers to Japan making more of its DIY youth are hiring practices that err on the side of safe, if subdued, candidates, Yashiro and other experts say.
"Lots of corporate personnel people say they want more individualistic employees, even if they have some faults," said Okubo at Recruit's Works Institute. "But they are not really engaging in that kind of hiring."
Newer, more agile companies, such as Fast Retailing, the operator of discount clothing chain Uniqlo, are trying a different tack, experts say.
"Students now are really capable, so our generation has to create a social system that can mobilize that, said Tetsuya Koizumi, executive director at FIL Investments (Japan) Ltd. "Some companies are starting to realize this."
COLD TO FOREIGNERS
Firms seeking more vibrant hires are turning to Chinese and other foreigners as they target profits from growing overseas markets. But Jiang Yue, who left China at 19 to study in Japan, says she still confronts institutional discrimination in a country where many associate foreigners with crime and social friction.
"Both my boyfriend and I work for firms listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. But when realtors call apartment owners, 70 percent of the time they say no," said the 27-year-old Jiang, who graduated from a Japanese national university and now works for an IT network firm in Tokyo.
"We are working hard and receiving salaries. Why is it that we can't rent a place?"
Experts say that with a population forecast to shrink 30 percent by 2055, Japan has to look seriously at opening up to immigrants, a sensitive subject in a country where many worry more foreigners mean more crime and less social cohesion.
Lawmakers in both major parties have proposed more liberal immigration policy, but neither side wants to air the topic these days for fear of alienating voters.
Opening the doors to more immigrants would require sorting out thorny issues such as who should pay for language education and other assimilation costs, and how to guard against friction between newcomers and local residents.
Life on the societal fringe, though, can generate just the sort of innovative thinking Japan needs.
Private equity banker Taejun Shin says growing up as an outsider imbued him with an unconventional approach that he thinks gives him an edge, both in his day job and in his second persona running a non-profit organization. Shin was born and raised in Japan as one of nearly 600,000 ethnic Koreans, many descendants of those brought over as forced labor during Tokyo's 1910-1945 colonization of the peninsula.
"Older generation Korean-Japanese grew up knowing that however smart they were, they were not going to get into one of the 'name' corporations as a fresh graduate," a path to which most Japanese graduates aspire, says Shin, an associate at private equity fund Unison Capital. "So Korean-Japanese businessmen naturally become out-of-the-box thinkers, the best example being Masayoshi Son," the founder of mobile phone carrier Softbank Corp.
Shin, whose non-profit organization "Living in Peace" raises loan money for small businesses in Southeast Asian markets, says he was drawn to microfinance because "It's hard -- people don't think such a self-reliant concept would take off in Japan. But I find the difficulty refreshing."
GENDER GAP
Women, a hugely underutilized source of talent in Japan, face big barriers in Japan's male-dominated society, especially in conservative sectors such as banking.
The World Economic Forum's "Global Gender Gap Index", measuring equality between men and women, ranked Japan 94 out of 134 countries. A study by Japan's Gender Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office found that women accounted for only 4.1 percent of department managers in 2008 - a modest increase from 2.1 percent in 1999.
"Women are treated as a minority," says a 20-something female banker who is looking for a different job. "Men's attitudes get cold and harsh when women try to play on the same level," added the banker, who declined to be identified for fear of repercussions at work while she seeks another job.
Working mothers also have a hard time, despite decades of debate, programs and promises to make it easier to juggle work and child-rearing as a way to boost Japan's depressed birthrate and fill the gap from a shrinking workforce.
That doesn't stop mums like Rie Goto from trying.
"There is no future unless women can raise kids and work at the same time," says Goto, 29, sitting on a bench watching her 3-year-old son Shunsuke run around a park one Sunday. "In that sense, I'm determined to keep working, to show others that it can be done."
The struggle has, however, kept Goto from having kid No. 2.
"Five years from now, I want to be raising a second child," says Goto, who works as an advertising copywriter. "But I don't want to stop working, so I haven't decided to have another child yet."
Daycare shortages, long working hours and the high cost of education have all been cited to explain Japan's low birthrate. But Goto says a big part of the problem is a deep-rooted cultural attitude that puts the onus for child-rearing on mums.
"More men are spending time with their families, but they are considered the exception," says Goto, whose own husband does help out, taking his turn picking their son up from daycare.
E-commerce firm employee Imamura, who plans to wed in the spring and hopes eventually to have two kids, also figures she'll have to hustle to manage both a career and motherhood.
"I would take the shortest maternity leave possible. I am a bit scared of taking a break in my career," she says. "I want to always be on top of industry trends."
BOTTOM-UP CHANGE
Japanese of all ages have long expected little from their politicians, and ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) local lawmaker Zenko Kurishita doesn't really blame them. Kurishita was elected to the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly in 2009 at the age of 26 by the same tidal wave of voter longing for change that propelled the Democrats to power nationally for the first time.
A year and a half later, the DPJ-led government's ratings are sagging due to voter disappointment with internal ruling party bickering, economic woes and diplomatic missteps.
Yet Kurishita hopes he and like-minded young politicians can engineer change.
"Until now, things have been decided top-down, but what I want to do is work with other young people to join together to change things from the bottom up."
Kurishita, who studied in the United States before working as a software salesman, admits he worries about a future in which Japan's global presence keeps shrinking, but thinks one path to a brighter future is giving young voters a bigger voice.
"Naturally, elderly people are more numerous and more of them vote, so politicians tend to focus on the elderly," he said in his tiny office in central Tokyo. "But when the economic outlook is tough, young people need to take the helm and lead Japan in the right direction," said Kurishita, who counts among his heroes Soichiro Honda, the auto mechanic-turned-entrepreneur who founded Honda Motor Co in the dark days after Japan's defeat in World War Two.
Succeeding in that effort could well be tough given the grip of seniors in Japanese politics, where lawmakers in their 50s are still referred to as "youngsters" and the point man for pension reform is 72-year-old Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano.
"Young MPs are twice as old as Japan's soccer team," quipped Jesper Koll, director of equity research at JPMorgan Securities Japan, referring to the national football side, where the average age is under 25. The Blue Samurai team's stellar performance in January, when they beat an Australian band of 30-somethings for a record fourth Asian Cup title, could serve as a metaphor for the potential of Japanese youth.
"It's a symbol of the power of youth that Japan has. People who get dirty, have fun and win," Koll said.
"The lesson is, don't count out Japan." (Additional reporting by Chisa Fujioka, Mariko Katsumura, Yoko Kubota, Nathan Layne, Yoko Nishikawa, Abi Sekimitsu, Kiyoshi Takenaka and Taiga Uranaka) (Editing by Bill Tarrant)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110215/lf_nm_life/us_japan_youth
"I thought it was like a rule - I would graduate from Tokyo University, enter a foreign consulting firm and after years of study might be ready to start my own firm," said the 29-year-old. "The people at DeNA were really smart, but they weren't caught up with rules, and that was fun.
"That was a big turning point for me," said Kurabayashi, who now runs his own firm.
Kurabayashi is one of Japan's "20-something" generation: many born during a heady "bubble economy" they can't recall, coming of age in an era of sliding national status and eyeing retirement when, many predict, the country's economic sun will have set.
The fracturing of the post-World War Two system that propelled Japan's economy to the No. 2 global spot -- a status now lost to China -- has pushed many of his cohorts to seek security by trying to cling to what remains. But for many others, the uncertainty itself is giving birth to a do-it-yourself mindset that could generate welcome dynamism.
"If we expect the country to take care of us, we may end up not being able to make a living," says Megumi Kawashima, 27, a website designer and one of Japan's legions of "otaku" fans of comics and video games. "We should be sensible enough to know we need to take care of ourselves," added Kawashima, who creates manga comics -- illustrated in a distinctive Japanese style and popular around the world -- under the pen name K Ayuhara.
For now, these DIY youth appear to be a minority, whose voice has been drowned out by a drumbeat of reports about Japanese youth's generally passive response to a dismal future. But experts say their ranks will grow as traditional corporate and social systems crumble further.
"On the one hand, you have young people who are taking matters into their own hands in the face of companies and a government who have little to offer them in return," said Yasuo Suwa, a professor at Hosei University's graduate school.
"But on the other hand, you have young people who are looking for an easy way out, seeking shelters that are fast disappearing," Suwa said. "It will be slow, but I think there will be more gutsy young people going forward."
DAUNTING DEMOGRAPHICS
The macro-economic and demographic trends confronting Japan's youth are indeed daunting.
Japan's public debt has risen to about twice the size of its $5 trillion economy from about half of gross domestic product in 1980, and is forecast to near 250 percent in 2015. Credit rating agency Standard and Poor's in January downgraded its rating on Japan's sovereign debt to AA minus from AA, warning that Japan's government debt would keep rising and citing political deadlock as a concern.
Nearly one in four Japanese are now aged 65 or over, with the figure expected to reach 40 percent by 2050. The economy has been mired in mild deflation for most of the past decade.
The aging of Japan is forcing politicians to face up to the need to raise a 5 percent sales tax to finance bulging pension and health-care costs, breaking a long-time political taboo. Social-security spending could reach more than 28.7 trillion yen ($351 billion) in the next fiscal year beginning in April, accounting for a third of the overall budget.
But while many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree higher taxes are unavoidable, struggling Prime Minister Naoto Kan is having little success luring feisty opposition parties to the table to discuss specific reforms.
Twenty-something Japanese interviewed by Reuters, from bureaucrats and career women to a long-haired nationalist and a radish farmer, know they face a less secure future in a system in which fewer than two workers will be supporting one retiree by 2030, from three now.
"Japan's fiscal state is like a ticking bomb," said Hiromi, 26, who joined the elite finance ministry after watching a banking crisis unfold in the 1990s when he was a student. "As I think about having a child in the future and wonder what his or her future will be like, I want to do something to fix the situation," added Hiromi, who asked to be identified only by his first name so he could speak more freely.
But few 20-somethings expect the government to do much to fix Japan's problems or secure their future. A survey of college students conducted last year by fund manager Fidelity International showed that 65 percent were pessimistic about Japan's future -- and an equal percentage believed they would have to rely on their own assets and savings in their old age, more than pensions.
Youth are keenly aware of China's lengthening shadow as their giant neighbor bumps Japan out of its No. 2 global economic ranking, though many seem little phased by Tokyo's relative decline.
"China had long been leading Japan in national might except for the past 100 years or so," says Tsunehira Furuya, 28, whose shoulder-length bleached hair makes him look more like a pop singer than the conservative political activist he is.
"China getting ahead of Japan economically is sort of a return to the historical norm, and that does not bother me."
CRUMBLING CORPORATE COCOON
Japan's relative loss of global status may be inevitable given demographics and the maturity of its economy. But a growing self-reliance and willingness to take risks could translate into a less gloomy future than many predict.
"If you know that the best and the brightest only go to GM or Ford, all the other places that could innovate don't," said Brian Heywood, CEO of Taiyo Pacific Partners, which has about $2 billion invested in Japanese shares. If it is no longer the case that they only go to Toyota or Sony ... you could have real dynamism in the economy," he said.
"It doesn't happen overnight."
For now, many youth seem to be seeking an elusive security, an attitude scoffed at by members of the DIY tribe.
"Japanese in general these days are really spoiled and not ambitious, and just happy enough with what they are or what they have," says Juri Imamura, 28, who got a graduate degree in New York before taking a job at a Japanese e-commerce firm with aggressive overseas plans. "They aren't 'hungry'."
Surveys of university students by publishing and human resources firm Recruit Co. Ltd show a steady increase since 2005 in the percentage of those wanting to spend their entire career at the first company that hires them, rising to around 80 percent as the economy faltered last year. early half of new hires don't want to work overseas, many worrying that it is "too risky", another Recruit survey showed.
"They are satisfied with the present situation in Japan," said Yukio Okubo, general manager at the Works Institute research arm of Recruit.
But with Japan's famed life-time employment system crumbling to be replaced by a labor force where one-third of workers have unstable jobs with uncertain benefits, chances today's youth can live out their lives in a secure corporate cocoon are shrinking.
While only about one in four Japanese aged 15-34 in a 2009 government survey said they wanted to change jobs before retirement, in fact, just over half the age group had already done so -- compared to about one-third in the 1997 survey.
"I think of a company as a place that provides me with challenges and where I can build networks and develop my skills," Imamura said. "So if my ideas and the corporate direction don't match, naturally I would consider leaving."
Youth unemployment is stuck near record highs at around 10 percent. That's low compared to many other advanced countries, but alarming for students faced with hiring practices that mean they may get only one shot at a full-time job after graduating.
The gloomy outlook, however, has a silver lining.
"It used to be nonsense for someone to start a business because it was so risky, but now, because they can't get good employment opportunities, the risk is lower," said Naohiro Yashiro, a professor at International Christian University in Tokyo and former member of a government advisory panel.
"You can't find this in survey data because the majority is still sticking to the traditional model of getting jobs in big companies or government ... so you can only find anecdotal evidence," Yashiro said.
"Currently, we are in a transitional phase," adds Yashiro, who says greater willingness to start businesses or switch jobs can boost Japan's flagging productivity through a better allocation of resources.
BUSINESS CULTURE
After his stint at DeNa, Kurabayashi, set up Imio Corp with a band of former schoolmates and soccer buddies five years ago. The firm has already made it further than many Japanese startups, with $2 million in annual sales of colorful soccer and futsal balls made in Pakistan.
Embarking on a new challenge or proposing something new is often met with skepticism," Kurabayashi says. "In places like Silicon Valley, people will react positively to almost anything you propose. Things could change for Japan in an atmosphere like that -- in business and in politics."
Critics say making room for more people like Kurabaysahi, though, requires changing a business culture that has long been less than encouraging to risk-takers.
"Japan has to do something about its entrepreneurial opportunities, and that's all wound up in tax policies and government regulations," Taiyo Pacific's Heywood said during one of his monthly visits to Japan from his home base in Kirkland, Washington.
"This society squeezes entrepreneurs; it doesn't embrace them."
Entrepreneurs, in fact, got a black eye with the public from Takafumi Horie, the founder of Internet portal Livedoor Co, who turned a $50,000 startup into a $6 billion conglomerate and was then arrested and convicted of fraud. He is appealing.
"What could change things is ... if you got a mainstream Japanese guy who was a successful entrepreneur," Heywood said. "Horie could have been that, but he was pushing the system and the system smashed him hard."
Among the institutional barriers to Japan making more of its DIY youth are hiring practices that err on the side of safe, if subdued, candidates, Yashiro and other experts say.
"Lots of corporate personnel people say they want more individualistic employees, even if they have some faults," said Okubo at Recruit's Works Institute. "But they are not really engaging in that kind of hiring."
Newer, more agile companies, such as Fast Retailing, the operator of discount clothing chain Uniqlo, are trying a different tack, experts say.
"Students now are really capable, so our generation has to create a social system that can mobilize that, said Tetsuya Koizumi, executive director at FIL Investments (Japan) Ltd. "Some companies are starting to realize this."
COLD TO FOREIGNERS
Firms seeking more vibrant hires are turning to Chinese and other foreigners as they target profits from growing overseas markets. But Jiang Yue, who left China at 19 to study in Japan, says she still confronts institutional discrimination in a country where many associate foreigners with crime and social friction.
"Both my boyfriend and I work for firms listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. But when realtors call apartment owners, 70 percent of the time they say no," said the 27-year-old Jiang, who graduated from a Japanese national university and now works for an IT network firm in Tokyo.
"We are working hard and receiving salaries. Why is it that we can't rent a place?"
Experts say that with a population forecast to shrink 30 percent by 2055, Japan has to look seriously at opening up to immigrants, a sensitive subject in a country where many worry more foreigners mean more crime and less social cohesion.
Lawmakers in both major parties have proposed more liberal immigration policy, but neither side wants to air the topic these days for fear of alienating voters.
Opening the doors to more immigrants would require sorting out thorny issues such as who should pay for language education and other assimilation costs, and how to guard against friction between newcomers and local residents.
Life on the societal fringe, though, can generate just the sort of innovative thinking Japan needs.
Private equity banker Taejun Shin says growing up as an outsider imbued him with an unconventional approach that he thinks gives him an edge, both in his day job and in his second persona running a non-profit organization. Shin was born and raised in Japan as one of nearly 600,000 ethnic Koreans, many descendants of those brought over as forced labor during Tokyo's 1910-1945 colonization of the peninsula.
"Older generation Korean-Japanese grew up knowing that however smart they were, they were not going to get into one of the 'name' corporations as a fresh graduate," a path to which most Japanese graduates aspire, says Shin, an associate at private equity fund Unison Capital. "So Korean-Japanese businessmen naturally become out-of-the-box thinkers, the best example being Masayoshi Son," the founder of mobile phone carrier Softbank Corp.
Shin, whose non-profit organization "Living in Peace" raises loan money for small businesses in Southeast Asian markets, says he was drawn to microfinance because "It's hard -- people don't think such a self-reliant concept would take off in Japan. But I find the difficulty refreshing."
GENDER GAP
Women, a hugely underutilized source of talent in Japan, face big barriers in Japan's male-dominated society, especially in conservative sectors such as banking.
The World Economic Forum's "Global Gender Gap Index", measuring equality between men and women, ranked Japan 94 out of 134 countries. A study by Japan's Gender Equality Bureau of the Cabinet Office found that women accounted for only 4.1 percent of department managers in 2008 - a modest increase from 2.1 percent in 1999.
"Women are treated as a minority," says a 20-something female banker who is looking for a different job. "Men's attitudes get cold and harsh when women try to play on the same level," added the banker, who declined to be identified for fear of repercussions at work while she seeks another job.
Working mothers also have a hard time, despite decades of debate, programs and promises to make it easier to juggle work and child-rearing as a way to boost Japan's depressed birthrate and fill the gap from a shrinking workforce.
That doesn't stop mums like Rie Goto from trying.
"There is no future unless women can raise kids and work at the same time," says Goto, 29, sitting on a bench watching her 3-year-old son Shunsuke run around a park one Sunday. "In that sense, I'm determined to keep working, to show others that it can be done."
The struggle has, however, kept Goto from having kid No. 2.
"Five years from now, I want to be raising a second child," says Goto, who works as an advertising copywriter. "But I don't want to stop working, so I haven't decided to have another child yet."
Daycare shortages, long working hours and the high cost of education have all been cited to explain Japan's low birthrate. But Goto says a big part of the problem is a deep-rooted cultural attitude that puts the onus for child-rearing on mums.
"More men are spending time with their families, but they are considered the exception," says Goto, whose own husband does help out, taking his turn picking their son up from daycare.
E-commerce firm employee Imamura, who plans to wed in the spring and hopes eventually to have two kids, also figures she'll have to hustle to manage both a career and motherhood.
"I would take the shortest maternity leave possible. I am a bit scared of taking a break in my career," she says. "I want to always be on top of industry trends."
BOTTOM-UP CHANGE
Japanese of all ages have long expected little from their politicians, and ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) local lawmaker Zenko Kurishita doesn't really blame them. Kurishita was elected to the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly in 2009 at the age of 26 by the same tidal wave of voter longing for change that propelled the Democrats to power nationally for the first time.
A year and a half later, the DPJ-led government's ratings are sagging due to voter disappointment with internal ruling party bickering, economic woes and diplomatic missteps.
Yet Kurishita hopes he and like-minded young politicians can engineer change.
"Until now, things have been decided top-down, but what I want to do is work with other young people to join together to change things from the bottom up."
Kurishita, who studied in the United States before working as a software salesman, admits he worries about a future in which Japan's global presence keeps shrinking, but thinks one path to a brighter future is giving young voters a bigger voice.
"Naturally, elderly people are more numerous and more of them vote, so politicians tend to focus on the elderly," he said in his tiny office in central Tokyo. "But when the economic outlook is tough, young people need to take the helm and lead Japan in the right direction," said Kurishita, who counts among his heroes Soichiro Honda, the auto mechanic-turned-entrepreneur who founded Honda Motor Co in the dark days after Japan's defeat in World War Two.
Succeeding in that effort could well be tough given the grip of seniors in Japanese politics, where lawmakers in their 50s are still referred to as "youngsters" and the point man for pension reform is 72-year-old Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano.
"Young MPs are twice as old as Japan's soccer team," quipped Jesper Koll, director of equity research at JPMorgan Securities Japan, referring to the national football side, where the average age is under 25. The Blue Samurai team's stellar performance in January, when they beat an Australian band of 30-somethings for a record fourth Asian Cup title, could serve as a metaphor for the potential of Japanese youth.
"It's a symbol of the power of youth that Japan has. People who get dirty, have fun and win," Koll said.
"The lesson is, don't count out Japan." (Additional reporting by Chisa Fujioka, Mariko Katsumura, Yoko Kubota, Nathan Layne, Yoko Nishikawa, Abi Sekimitsu, Kiyoshi Takenaka and Taiga Uranaka) (Editing by Bill Tarrant)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110215/lf_nm_life/us_japan_youth
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Foreign employees in Japan up 15.5% to around 650,000 at end of Oct
A total of 649,982 foreign workers were employed by 108,760 companies and other establishments in Japan as of the end of last October, up 15.5 percent and 14.1 percent, respectively, from a year earlier, the labor ministry said Monday.
The total included 259,362 workers in the manufacturing sector, up 15.6 percent from the year before, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said.
In explaining the rise, the ministry said that Chinese, Brazilian and other workers who were laid off amid the economic downturn are being called back for short-term jobs in the Chukyo area in central Japan, where a large number of manufacturers operate.
By nationality, Chinese workers accounted for 287,105 of the total, followed by 116,363 Brazilians and 61,710 Filipinos.
Tokyo, Aichi and Shizuoka prefectures had the three largest populations of foreign workers at 154,610, 78,723 and 38,802, respectively.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9L39P300&show_article=1
The total included 259,362 workers in the manufacturing sector, up 15.6 percent from the year before, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said.
In explaining the rise, the ministry said that Chinese, Brazilian and other workers who were laid off amid the economic downturn are being called back for short-term jobs in the Chukyo area in central Japan, where a large number of manufacturers operate.
By nationality, Chinese workers accounted for 287,105 of the total, followed by 116,363 Brazilians and 61,710 Filipinos.
Tokyo, Aichi and Shizuoka prefectures had the three largest populations of foreign workers at 154,610, 78,723 and 38,802, respectively.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9L39P300&show_article=1
Friday, January 28, 2011
Universities embrace using mascot character goods
Universities are turning out more and more original products to help boost their brand recognition, the latest trend being so-called character goods featuring school mascots and famous faculty. Their efforts appear to be paying off, with the goods popular among current students and those wanting to enroll in the future .
At Nagoya University in Aichi Prefecture, a university cooperative has sold snacks decorated with the face of Toshihide Masukawa--a Nobel laureate in physics and special professor at the university--since April last year.
The items are Meidai Manju (Nagoya Univ. red bean cakes) priced at 1,050 yen per pack of 12, and Meidai Senbei (Nagoya Univ. rice crackers) at 750 yen for a packet of 18.
Although the university already was selling similar confectioneries bearing its logo, it introduced the new items with Masukawa's face on their surface after gaining his approval.
"Prof. Masukawa was glad and said he hoped students would become great researchers after imbibing his likeness," a co-op official said.
Similarly, a Yamagata University co-op sells Gakucho Senbei (university president rice crackers) with a drawing of the university president on the package.
The co-op first began selling rice crackers adorned with the previous university president's portrait in 2004. They became a big hit, with about 70,000 crackers selling in three years.
When the president changed in 2007, so did the image on the rice cracker packet. A student drew the new portrait and this version is still being sold today.
Co-op officials said students, parents attending enrollment ceremonies and alumni had all bought the crackers.
Meanwhile, at Saga University, unique mugs are sold. They feature the university's mascot, "Katchii-kun" modeled after magpies--locally called "kachigarasu." The university's logo also contains an image of the bird.
Shimane University also uses its mascot, "Bibitto," to sell popular items such as key chains.
Yohokama National University has sold netsuke--traditional Japanese toggles used to hang objects from kimono obi--bearing the likeness of Hello Kitty since 2007. The goods are especially designed for the university.
From later this month, YNU will sell a new Hello Kitty netsuke model carrying a globe bearing the official university logo.
"The netsuke are popular among high school students. They sell well at events such as campus open days," an university co-op official said.
In many cases, these products cannot be found outside university co-op stores. But opportunities in which people unaffiliated with the universities can purchase the goods are increasing.
For about two years, the Tokyo-based major book store chain Kinokuniya Co., has held events named "Gakuichi Gakuza" to promote such items.
Likewise, the Takashimaya department store in Shinjuku, Tokyo, has for three years held events called "Daigaku wa Oishii!" (tasty goods from universities) in which food products developed by universities are sold.
The products include wine, jam and tuna farmed by university researchers and students. Last year, about 30 universities across the nation participated in the event. This year's event is planned for June.
Shiki Kurabe, a senior research fellow of Wasedajuku Sohken in Tokyo and an expert on universities' promotion activities, said, "Because of the shrinking youth population, universities are placing more emphasis on public relations.
"Character goods seem to be effective in raising school spirit among current students and are a promotional tool for entrance exam takers," Kurabe said.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110127006054.htm
At Nagoya University in Aichi Prefecture, a university cooperative has sold snacks decorated with the face of Toshihide Masukawa--a Nobel laureate in physics and special professor at the university--since April last year.
The items are Meidai Manju (Nagoya Univ. red bean cakes) priced at 1,050 yen per pack of 12, and Meidai Senbei (Nagoya Univ. rice crackers) at 750 yen for a packet of 18.
Although the university already was selling similar confectioneries bearing its logo, it introduced the new items with Masukawa's face on their surface after gaining his approval.
"Prof. Masukawa was glad and said he hoped students would become great researchers after imbibing his likeness," a co-op official said.
Similarly, a Yamagata University co-op sells Gakucho Senbei (university president rice crackers) with a drawing of the university president on the package.
The co-op first began selling rice crackers adorned with the previous university president's portrait in 2004. They became a big hit, with about 70,000 crackers selling in three years.
When the president changed in 2007, so did the image on the rice cracker packet. A student drew the new portrait and this version is still being sold today.
Co-op officials said students, parents attending enrollment ceremonies and alumni had all bought the crackers.
Meanwhile, at Saga University, unique mugs are sold. They feature the university's mascot, "Katchii-kun" modeled after magpies--locally called "kachigarasu." The university's logo also contains an image of the bird.
Shimane University also uses its mascot, "Bibitto," to sell popular items such as key chains.
Yohokama National University has sold netsuke--traditional Japanese toggles used to hang objects from kimono obi--bearing the likeness of Hello Kitty since 2007. The goods are especially designed for the university.
From later this month, YNU will sell a new Hello Kitty netsuke model carrying a globe bearing the official university logo.
"The netsuke are popular among high school students. They sell well at events such as campus open days," an university co-op official said.
In many cases, these products cannot be found outside university co-op stores. But opportunities in which people unaffiliated with the universities can purchase the goods are increasing.
For about two years, the Tokyo-based major book store chain Kinokuniya Co., has held events named "Gakuichi Gakuza" to promote such items.
Likewise, the Takashimaya department store in Shinjuku, Tokyo, has for three years held events called "Daigaku wa Oishii!" (tasty goods from universities) in which food products developed by universities are sold.
The products include wine, jam and tuna farmed by university researchers and students. Last year, about 30 universities across the nation participated in the event. This year's event is planned for June.
Shiki Kurabe, a senior research fellow of Wasedajuku Sohken in Tokyo and an expert on universities' promotion activities, said, "Because of the shrinking youth population, universities are placing more emphasis on public relations.
"Character goods seem to be effective in raising school spirit among current students and are a promotional tool for entrance exam takers," Kurabe said.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110127006054.htm
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Universities in U.S. giving up on Japan / Japanese kids would rather stay home
NEW YORK--More and more U.S. universities are apparently giving up on Japan as a target for recruiting students, as a survey showed that the number of U.S. universities taking part in publicity events in Japan has sharply dropped in recent years.
In the wake of a significant decrease in the number of Japanese students studying in the United States, the institutions are shifting their targets to other Asian countries, such as China.
Such a trend could affect Japan-U.S. relations in the future, observers said.
Japanese students used to be the largest group among foreign students at U.S. universities. But their number is now far below that of Chinese students.
Japan ranked sixth in terms of the number of foreign students studying at U.S. universities in the 2009-10 academic year.
Experts say the decrease reflects the inward-looking attitude of current Japanese students, a growing number of whom have no interest in studying overseas.
The Institute of International Education, a U.S. nonprofit organization that has promoted international exchange programs for study and training since 1919, has held study abroad fairs in Japan every year since 1991.
Reflecting the decreasing number of Japanese students who study in the United States, the number of U.S. universities participating in the fair dropped to 21 in 2010, one-fifth of the 106 that participated in 2006.
The decline is all the more conspicuous as the number of U.S. universities participating in similar fairs held in China, India and Vietnam during the same period has held steady.
IIE is an authority on international education exchange in the United States. It works closely with the Japan-U.S. Educational Commission, which manages the Fulbright grant program.
Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president and chief operating officer of IIE, worries about the decline in the number of Japanese students in the United States, saying that when she looks 10 or 20 years ahead, she sees it as an extremely serious situation in terms of the U.S.-Japan relationship.
Blumenthal's opinion stems from the fact that a number of Japanese who had studied in the United States after World War II later became leaders in various fields in their home country.
Even so, she said IIE is considering not holding the fair in Japan any longer as it is unable to halt the decline in the number of U.S. universities that participate.
Linden Educational Services, an educational consulting company based in Washington, D.C., that supports U.S. universities in recruiting foreign students, used to send 35 to 40 people from U.S. universities to Japan every year. However, it has dropped Japan from their itineraries since 2009, according to the company.
The University of Denver in Colorado stopped participating in the fair in Japan in 2008. Marjorie Smith, associate dean of international admissions, said it was useless to send representatives to Japan as students here were not interested. She wondered why this was happening in spite of the strong yen that makes it less expensive for Japanese to study abroad.
Japanese students were the largest foreign student group at U.S. universities for four consecutive years from the 1994-95 academic year. Their numbers peaked at 47,073 in the 1997-98 school year and remained flat in subsequent years. But since the 2005-06 academic year, the number has dropped for five consecutive years.
In the 2008-09 period, the number decreased by 13.9 percent from the previous year, and in 2009-10, it dropped by 15.1 percent from the previous year.
In 2009-10, the number of Japanese students in the United States stood at 24,842.
One major factor behind the decrease is that it has become easier for students to enter Japanese universities due to the nation's chronically low birthrate. Students also consider studying abroad to be disadvantageous in terms of job hunting, which usually begins in earnest during their junior year.
(Jan. 9, 2011)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110108003158.htm
In the wake of a significant decrease in the number of Japanese students studying in the United States, the institutions are shifting their targets to other Asian countries, such as China.
Such a trend could affect Japan-U.S. relations in the future, observers said.
Japanese students used to be the largest group among foreign students at U.S. universities. But their number is now far below that of Chinese students.
Japan ranked sixth in terms of the number of foreign students studying at U.S. universities in the 2009-10 academic year.
Experts say the decrease reflects the inward-looking attitude of current Japanese students, a growing number of whom have no interest in studying overseas.
The Institute of International Education, a U.S. nonprofit organization that has promoted international exchange programs for study and training since 1919, has held study abroad fairs in Japan every year since 1991.
Reflecting the decreasing number of Japanese students who study in the United States, the number of U.S. universities participating in the fair dropped to 21 in 2010, one-fifth of the 106 that participated in 2006.
The decline is all the more conspicuous as the number of U.S. universities participating in similar fairs held in China, India and Vietnam during the same period has held steady.
IIE is an authority on international education exchange in the United States. It works closely with the Japan-U.S. Educational Commission, which manages the Fulbright grant program.
Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president and chief operating officer of IIE, worries about the decline in the number of Japanese students in the United States, saying that when she looks 10 or 20 years ahead, she sees it as an extremely serious situation in terms of the U.S.-Japan relationship.
Blumenthal's opinion stems from the fact that a number of Japanese who had studied in the United States after World War II later became leaders in various fields in their home country.
Even so, she said IIE is considering not holding the fair in Japan any longer as it is unable to halt the decline in the number of U.S. universities that participate.
Linden Educational Services, an educational consulting company based in Washington, D.C., that supports U.S. universities in recruiting foreign students, used to send 35 to 40 people from U.S. universities to Japan every year. However, it has dropped Japan from their itineraries since 2009, according to the company.
The University of Denver in Colorado stopped participating in the fair in Japan in 2008. Marjorie Smith, associate dean of international admissions, said it was useless to send representatives to Japan as students here were not interested. She wondered why this was happening in spite of the strong yen that makes it less expensive for Japanese to study abroad.
Japanese students were the largest foreign student group at U.S. universities for four consecutive years from the 1994-95 academic year. Their numbers peaked at 47,073 in the 1997-98 school year and remained flat in subsequent years. But since the 2005-06 academic year, the number has dropped for five consecutive years.
In the 2008-09 period, the number decreased by 13.9 percent from the previous year, and in 2009-10, it dropped by 15.1 percent from the previous year.
In 2009-10, the number of Japanese students in the United States stood at 24,842.
One major factor behind the decrease is that it has become easier for students to enter Japanese universities due to the nation's chronically low birthrate. Students also consider studying abroad to be disadvantageous in terms of job hunting, which usually begins in earnest during their junior year.
(Jan. 9, 2011)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110108003158.htm
More Students Choose Universities in Japan
More students than ever are choosing universities in Japan for study abroad, and the number of Japanese students leaving the country to study has fallen markedly since a peak in 2004, according to two reports released at the end of December.
The Japan Student Services Organization , an independent institution, reported that the number of foreign students studying in Japan reached record highs of 141,774 in 2010, up 6.8 percent from the previous year.
That report also showed that just over 11,000 of the international students were “short term,” meaning they were in Japan “not necessarily to obtain a degree but rather to study at Japanese university, to experience a different culture, or to master the Japanese language.”
Meanwhile, data released by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology indicate that the number of Japanese students studying abroad has been declining since a peak of 82,945 in 2004. In the most recent figures, from 2008, the number of students was under 67,000, down 11 percent from the previous year.
Yukari Kato, executive vice president of Ryugaku Journal, which provides information about overseas study, told The Yomiuri Shimbun that many students were afraid of being left behind in Japan’s competitive job market.
Ms. Kato said she also viewed the slowing birthrate and an introspective mind-set among students as possible contributing factors.
— LOUISE LOFTUS
Use of Twitter is linked to higher grades, study finds
According to a new study published in The Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Twitter can bolster student engagement and grade-point average.
The study followed 125 pre-health majors at a midsize public university. Those using Twitter, says Rey Junco of Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania, the lead author, had an average G.P.A. half a point higher than their counterparts in a non-tweeting control group. They also more frequently participated in class, sought out professors and discussed course material outside of class.
Twitter was used for discussions, questioning professors in and out of class, receiving feedback and reminders, and reviewing course concepts reduced to terse fundamentals, all via laptop or cellphone.
Students seemed to find the medium a less intimidating way to express themselves in large lecture halls. “Twitter was a useful, low-stress way to ask questions,” Mr. Junco said.
As one student wrote on Twitter: “One of my favorite parts of the day is when I’m sitting in Bio lecture and a tweet has been sent out through the class account and everybody looks at their phone.”
— BY REBECCA R. RUIZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/world/asia/10iht-educBriefs10.html?_r=1
The Japan Student Services Organization , an independent institution, reported that the number of foreign students studying in Japan reached record highs of 141,774 in 2010, up 6.8 percent from the previous year.
That report also showed that just over 11,000 of the international students were “short term,” meaning they were in Japan “not necessarily to obtain a degree but rather to study at Japanese university, to experience a different culture, or to master the Japanese language.”
Meanwhile, data released by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology indicate that the number of Japanese students studying abroad has been declining since a peak of 82,945 in 2004. In the most recent figures, from 2008, the number of students was under 67,000, down 11 percent from the previous year.
Yukari Kato, executive vice president of Ryugaku Journal, which provides information about overseas study, told The Yomiuri Shimbun that many students were afraid of being left behind in Japan’s competitive job market.
Ms. Kato said she also viewed the slowing birthrate and an introspective mind-set among students as possible contributing factors.
— LOUISE LOFTUS
Use of Twitter is linked to higher grades, study finds
According to a new study published in The Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Twitter can bolster student engagement and grade-point average.
The study followed 125 pre-health majors at a midsize public university. Those using Twitter, says Rey Junco of Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania, the lead author, had an average G.P.A. half a point higher than their counterparts in a non-tweeting control group. They also more frequently participated in class, sought out professors and discussed course material outside of class.
Twitter was used for discussions, questioning professors in and out of class, receiving feedback and reminders, and reviewing course concepts reduced to terse fundamentals, all via laptop or cellphone.
Students seemed to find the medium a less intimidating way to express themselves in large lecture halls. “Twitter was a useful, low-stress way to ask questions,” Mr. Junco said.
As one student wrote on Twitter: “One of my favorite parts of the day is when I’m sitting in Bio lecture and a tweet has been sent out through the class account and everybody looks at their phone.”
— BY REBECCA R. RUIZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/world/asia/10iht-educBriefs10.html?_r=1
Universities risk data breach / Privatized IT systems put e-mail beyond protection of Japanese law
About 10 percent of universities in the nation use cloud computing services, which Google Inc. and other companies provide free of charge, to run their internal e-mail systems, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey.
In the survey of major universities nationwide, 14 state- and local government-run universities and 64 private universities said they had wholly or partially consigned management and maintenance of their internal e-mail systems to cloud computing providers.
This figure accounts for about 10 percent of the nearly 800 universities in the nation.
The trend raises concerns about information security, because in many cases the servers managing the universities' e-mail data are located in other countries, beyond the protection of Japanese law.
Cloud computing allows users to store and process data on the Internet, thus sparing the expense of buying and maintaining their own hardware and software. The provider companies benefit by having the chance to expose users to their products.
Nihon University was the first to adopt cloud computing in 2007, using services provided by Google. Since then, adoption among universities has been increasing rapidly.
Upon introduction of such a system, teaching staff, administrative staff, students and alumni are assigned e-mail addresses and allowed access to schedule-management and file-sharing programs.
The new e-mail addresses use the same domain name as the university's previous system, so outsiders are given no indication that the e-mail system is now being operated by a private company.
Google's Google Apps service is the most widely used by the nation's universities, the survey found, with 48 institutions, including Nihon University and Hitotsubashi University, having adopted it.
A competing service provided by Yahoo! Inc. is used by 22 universities, including the University of Tokyo, and Microsoft Corp.'s service is used by 10, according to the survey.
Two universities use the services of multiple companies, the survey found.
Cloud computing is also used by many university hospitals, including Kyoto University Hospital, which began using Google Apps in 2009.
However, having servers located overseas puts information security at risk, according to some cloud computing critics.
For example, if information is illegally accessed from an overseas server, Japanese law would not apply.
In the United States, the law allows investigators to access data in cloud computing servers without a warrant if authorities deem there is a risk of a terrorist act or other serious crime.
It is possible therefore that U.S. investigators could in such a case read e-mails containing personal information of cloud computing users.
The universities surveyed said the physical location of cloud computing servers was up to the provider companies.
Google and Microsoft have not revealed in which country the servers used to store the universities' data are located.
Hisamichi Okamura, a lawyer who specializes in telecommunications and information technology, asked, "Is it really OK that important information about people involved in universities--who can be said to be Japan's brightest brains--is stored in places where Japanese law can't protect it?"
He added: "European Union countries and some provinces of Canada impose strict regulations on how cloud computing systems store personal information. The Japanese government should consider how it will respond if a [data security] problem occurs."
(Jan. 18, 2011)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110117003565.htm
In the survey of major universities nationwide, 14 state- and local government-run universities and 64 private universities said they had wholly or partially consigned management and maintenance of their internal e-mail systems to cloud computing providers.
This figure accounts for about 10 percent of the nearly 800 universities in the nation.
The trend raises concerns about information security, because in many cases the servers managing the universities' e-mail data are located in other countries, beyond the protection of Japanese law.
Cloud computing allows users to store and process data on the Internet, thus sparing the expense of buying and maintaining their own hardware and software. The provider companies benefit by having the chance to expose users to their products.
Nihon University was the first to adopt cloud computing in 2007, using services provided by Google. Since then, adoption among universities has been increasing rapidly.
Upon introduction of such a system, teaching staff, administrative staff, students and alumni are assigned e-mail addresses and allowed access to schedule-management and file-sharing programs.
The new e-mail addresses use the same domain name as the university's previous system, so outsiders are given no indication that the e-mail system is now being operated by a private company.
Google's Google Apps service is the most widely used by the nation's universities, the survey found, with 48 institutions, including Nihon University and Hitotsubashi University, having adopted it.
A competing service provided by Yahoo! Inc. is used by 22 universities, including the University of Tokyo, and Microsoft Corp.'s service is used by 10, according to the survey.
Two universities use the services of multiple companies, the survey found.
Cloud computing is also used by many university hospitals, including Kyoto University Hospital, which began using Google Apps in 2009.
However, having servers located overseas puts information security at risk, according to some cloud computing critics.
For example, if information is illegally accessed from an overseas server, Japanese law would not apply.
In the United States, the law allows investigators to access data in cloud computing servers without a warrant if authorities deem there is a risk of a terrorist act or other serious crime.
It is possible therefore that U.S. investigators could in such a case read e-mails containing personal information of cloud computing users.
The universities surveyed said the physical location of cloud computing servers was up to the provider companies.
Google and Microsoft have not revealed in which country the servers used to store the universities' data are located.
Hisamichi Okamura, a lawyer who specializes in telecommunications and information technology, asked, "Is it really OK that important information about people involved in universities--who can be said to be Japan's brightest brains--is stored in places where Japanese law can't protect it?"
He added: "European Union countries and some provinces of Canada impose strict regulations on how cloud computing systems store personal information. The Japanese government should consider how it will respond if a [data security] problem occurs."
(Jan. 18, 2011)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110117003565.htm
Monday, January 10, 2011
Language teachers to go to U.S. for exchanges
Japan will beef up people-to-people exchanges with the United States this year by dispatching young teachers of the Japanese language and English to the country, government officials said Friday.
Tokyo will launch new programs to send those teachers in the fiscal year starting in April amid concerns that bilateral ties could weaken with declines in the number of Japanese students enrolled at U.S. universities and cuts in the Japanese budget for a project to invite American and other foreign university graduates to teach English at Japanese schools.
The government has earmarked ¥500 million in the fiscal 2011 budget to send 100 Japanese teachers of the English language aged 40 or younger to U.S. universities to learn English teaching methods for six months, the officials said.
The government-linked Japan Foundation, which offers training programs for Japanese language teachers abroad, will newly start Japanese language courses for the general public in Los Angeles and New York. Young Japanese teachers will be sent to those cities to teach a few thousand students annually.
The teacher dispatch program is in line with Prime Minister Naoto Kan's pledge last November in his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama to effect bilateral exchanges of several thousand people over five years.
Kan's initiative also includes sending young Japanese researchers to the United States, inviting U.S. Asian study experts to Japan and promoting short visits to Japan by American students.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110108a2.html
Tokyo will launch new programs to send those teachers in the fiscal year starting in April amid concerns that bilateral ties could weaken with declines in the number of Japanese students enrolled at U.S. universities and cuts in the Japanese budget for a project to invite American and other foreign university graduates to teach English at Japanese schools.
The government has earmarked ¥500 million in the fiscal 2011 budget to send 100 Japanese teachers of the English language aged 40 or younger to U.S. universities to learn English teaching methods for six months, the officials said.
The government-linked Japan Foundation, which offers training programs for Japanese language teachers abroad, will newly start Japanese language courses for the general public in Los Angeles and New York. Young Japanese teachers will be sent to those cities to teach a few thousand students annually.
The teacher dispatch program is in line with Prime Minister Naoto Kan's pledge last November in his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama to effect bilateral exchanges of several thousand people over five years.
Kan's initiative also includes sending young Japanese researchers to the United States, inviting U.S. Asian study experts to Japan and promoting short visits to Japan by American students.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110108a2.html
Japan far behind in global language of business
Keiko Suezaki in October began sending her 7-year-old daughter to an English school in Meguro Ward, Tokyo, once a week, hoping to give her more exposure to the de facto international language.
Although her daughter, Rina, has a 45-minute English activity class at her elementary school once every two weeks, Suezaki didn't think it was enough.
"If you live in Europe, or maybe in India, you become conscious of the necessity of learning English, but it's different in Japan. So I just want my daughter to know that there is an important language called English and it's fun (to learn)," said Suezaki, a 38-year-old Tokyo resident. "Besides, I think there will be more chances to use English in business situations (in the future). When such a time comes, it's better if one can use English."
With the economy expected to shrink due to the low birthrate, Japan has no choice but to seek markets outside the country, which will mean working more with non-Japanese, experts say.
For a country without much in the way of natural resources, manpower will be key to future survival. Japan, however, appears to be falling behind its neighbors in nurturing personnel who can compete in a globalizing world.
According to an education ministry report released in December, the number of Japanese heading overseas to study fell in every one of the four years to 2008, dropping from 82,945 in 2004 to 66,833 in that period.
The decline is especially sharp in the number of Japanese studying in the United States, falling from 46,497 in 2000 to 24,842 in 2009, according to data from the Institute of International Education.
By contrast, Chinese students in the U.S. more than doubled from 59,939 in 2000 to 127,628 in 2009. As for South Korean students, the number grew from 45,685 in 2000 to 72,153 in 2009.
"While Japan has shifted from the phase of heated educational competition to a calmer, post-high-growth period, other East Asian nations' interest in education has been escalating," said Mariko Abumiya, a senior researcher at the National Institute for Educational Policy Research who specializes in China's education policy.
Reflecting the trend toward globalization, both China and South Korea are pouring huge efforts into fostering global human resources, especially in English-language education.
"China and South Korea are more aware of the importance and usefulness of English (as a tool) to present their countries to the world. But Japan's awareness of that is low," said Nobuyuki Honna, a professor emeritus at Aoyama Gakuin University.
The nation, after long debate, will introduce "foreign-language activity" once a week in the curriculum for fifth- and sixth-graders in fiscal 2011, taking up a total of 35 periods a year. South Korea, on the other hand, made English classes compulsory from the third grade in 1997. China did the same in 2001.
"In China, English is taught about four hours a week starting with the third grade," Honna said. "In the case of Shanghai, English is taught five or six hours a week, in many cases from the first grade. That means they study English for about 1,000 hours in total before graduating from elementary school."
Honna explained that in China's eastern cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, where the education standard is high, English was taught in elementary schools years before it became official policy in 2001.
The situation is even more intense in South Korea, especially after the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis that forced the country to seek help from the International Monetary Fund.
Taking the crisis to heart, many parents today are eager to get as much English education for their offspring as possible because their future depends not only on the name of the school from which they graduate but also on their English ability, experts say.
"Not only the leading companies such as Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc., but also small and medium-size companies give prospective employees English exams," said Ito Kutsuzawa, manager of the Benesse Educational Research and Development Center. "Leading companies set the bar high for English ability. And there is a huge gap in salaries between the nation's leading companies and the group ranked in the second tier."
However, the hunger for English has created problems for schools.
"Some Japanese elementary schools are reportedly struggling with classroom disruptions by misbehaving students. But in South Korea, some schools are facing classroom dysfunction because many — sometimes about half the members of a class — take a month off to go abroad to study English," said Kim Tae Hoon, an associate professor of education at Seisa University in Hokkaido.
According to a report in The Korea Times, the number of elementary school children studying abroad rose to 8,298 in 2007 from 2,453 in 2005.
Many mothers and their children move to nations where English is the native language, including Canada and the U.S., so their children will gain fluency in the language, while their fathers stay in South Korea, working hard to earn money to support this pursuit, according to Kim.
Backed by this kind of fervor, South Koreans' overall English ability is getting better, experts say.
The Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) is one yardstick.
The average score for South Koreans jumped to 619 in 2009 from 561 in 1995, while Japanese marked an improvement of just 581 in 2009 from 572 in 1995, according to the Institute for International Business Communication.
The number of South Koreans taking the TOEIC surged to 2.05 million in 2009 from 421,704 in 1995, while Japanese takers increased to 1.68 million in 2009 from 565,000 in 1995.
Meanwhile, in Japan, with the government's clear change in direction from its much criticized "yutori" (relaxed) education policy introduced in the 1970s, English education is expected to improve.
Apart from the official kickoff of "foreign-language activities" at elementary schools in April, the volume of vocabulary to be taught as well as hours spent in English class in junior high and high school will increase over the next couple of years.
For example, the vocabulary list for the junior high level will leap from the current 900 words to 1,200 starting in fiscal 2012 and English classes will increase from the current three a week to four, the education ministry said.
At elementary schools, textbooks will increase in size by about 24.5 percent on average from fiscal 2011.
The government has been making changes to boost children's academic levels, especially after 2003's disappointing results in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international standardized test conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development every three years since 2000.
In the 2003 testing, conducted among 15-year-old children in 41 countries and regions, Japan's ranking in two of three subjects had dropped more than four places.
After putting in the effort to strengthen literacy, including introducing book-reading time in the morning, the latest 2009 PISA results showed improvement in Japanese students' performance.
Although the data can't simply be compared with previous PISA data because of differences in the number of participating countries, Japan's ranking in reading comprehension rose from 15th place in 2006 to eighth in 2009.
In science literacy, it moved from sixth in 2006 to fifth in 2009, while math literacy improved to ninth in 2009, up from 10th place three years earlier.
Although Japan's rankings are low when compared with other parts of East Asia, including first-time participant Shanghai, which stunned many by dominating the top in all three tests, Japan's academic ability is first-class, said Hiroaki Mimizuka, vice president of Ochanomizu University.
"When looking at the size of participating countries and regions, Japan is the only country in the top 10 with a population of more than 100 hundred million," Mimizuka said. "It depends on how you look at the results, but it can be said that it's possible to force a country with a (population equivalent to that) of Tokyo (to raise its academic level) with a top-down method. But for a country with more than 100 hundred million people, it's difficult to effect change with that approach.
"As such, we shouldn't mimic other countries in setting the nation's educational policy. We should seek our own way to achieve high academic ability."
The biggest hurdle facing Japanese youth today is low aspirations, experts say.
Growing up in a relatively wealthy country with little competitive pressure due to the low fertility rate, many Japanese youth tend to think things will somehow work out and don't push themselves much, Mimizuka said.
As shown in the falling interest in studying abroad, regardless of universities' attempts to send more students overseas, many choose to stay in their comfort zones, experts say.
"There are limits to how much educational content and policy can change. . . . Other social sectors, including education, need to put in the effort and think about what they should do for Japan to survive as well as for the world to flourish," Mimizuka said.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110106f1.html
Although her daughter, Rina, has a 45-minute English activity class at her elementary school once every two weeks, Suezaki didn't think it was enough.
"If you live in Europe, or maybe in India, you become conscious of the necessity of learning English, but it's different in Japan. So I just want my daughter to know that there is an important language called English and it's fun (to learn)," said Suezaki, a 38-year-old Tokyo resident. "Besides, I think there will be more chances to use English in business situations (in the future). When such a time comes, it's better if one can use English."
With the economy expected to shrink due to the low birthrate, Japan has no choice but to seek markets outside the country, which will mean working more with non-Japanese, experts say.
For a country without much in the way of natural resources, manpower will be key to future survival. Japan, however, appears to be falling behind its neighbors in nurturing personnel who can compete in a globalizing world.
According to an education ministry report released in December, the number of Japanese heading overseas to study fell in every one of the four years to 2008, dropping from 82,945 in 2004 to 66,833 in that period.
The decline is especially sharp in the number of Japanese studying in the United States, falling from 46,497 in 2000 to 24,842 in 2009, according to data from the Institute of International Education.
By contrast, Chinese students in the U.S. more than doubled from 59,939 in 2000 to 127,628 in 2009. As for South Korean students, the number grew from 45,685 in 2000 to 72,153 in 2009.
"While Japan has shifted from the phase of heated educational competition to a calmer, post-high-growth period, other East Asian nations' interest in education has been escalating," said Mariko Abumiya, a senior researcher at the National Institute for Educational Policy Research who specializes in China's education policy.
Reflecting the trend toward globalization, both China and South Korea are pouring huge efforts into fostering global human resources, especially in English-language education.
"China and South Korea are more aware of the importance and usefulness of English (as a tool) to present their countries to the world. But Japan's awareness of that is low," said Nobuyuki Honna, a professor emeritus at Aoyama Gakuin University.
The nation, after long debate, will introduce "foreign-language activity" once a week in the curriculum for fifth- and sixth-graders in fiscal 2011, taking up a total of 35 periods a year. South Korea, on the other hand, made English classes compulsory from the third grade in 1997. China did the same in 2001.
"In China, English is taught about four hours a week starting with the third grade," Honna said. "In the case of Shanghai, English is taught five or six hours a week, in many cases from the first grade. That means they study English for about 1,000 hours in total before graduating from elementary school."
Honna explained that in China's eastern cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, where the education standard is high, English was taught in elementary schools years before it became official policy in 2001.
The situation is even more intense in South Korea, especially after the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis that forced the country to seek help from the International Monetary Fund.
Taking the crisis to heart, many parents today are eager to get as much English education for their offspring as possible because their future depends not only on the name of the school from which they graduate but also on their English ability, experts say.
"Not only the leading companies such as Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc., but also small and medium-size companies give prospective employees English exams," said Ito Kutsuzawa, manager of the Benesse Educational Research and Development Center. "Leading companies set the bar high for English ability. And there is a huge gap in salaries between the nation's leading companies and the group ranked in the second tier."
However, the hunger for English has created problems for schools.
"Some Japanese elementary schools are reportedly struggling with classroom disruptions by misbehaving students. But in South Korea, some schools are facing classroom dysfunction because many — sometimes about half the members of a class — take a month off to go abroad to study English," said Kim Tae Hoon, an associate professor of education at Seisa University in Hokkaido.
According to a report in The Korea Times, the number of elementary school children studying abroad rose to 8,298 in 2007 from 2,453 in 2005.
Many mothers and their children move to nations where English is the native language, including Canada and the U.S., so their children will gain fluency in the language, while their fathers stay in South Korea, working hard to earn money to support this pursuit, according to Kim.
Backed by this kind of fervor, South Koreans' overall English ability is getting better, experts say.
The Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) is one yardstick.
The average score for South Koreans jumped to 619 in 2009 from 561 in 1995, while Japanese marked an improvement of just 581 in 2009 from 572 in 1995, according to the Institute for International Business Communication.
The number of South Koreans taking the TOEIC surged to 2.05 million in 2009 from 421,704 in 1995, while Japanese takers increased to 1.68 million in 2009 from 565,000 in 1995.
Meanwhile, in Japan, with the government's clear change in direction from its much criticized "yutori" (relaxed) education policy introduced in the 1970s, English education is expected to improve.
Apart from the official kickoff of "foreign-language activities" at elementary schools in April, the volume of vocabulary to be taught as well as hours spent in English class in junior high and high school will increase over the next couple of years.
For example, the vocabulary list for the junior high level will leap from the current 900 words to 1,200 starting in fiscal 2012 and English classes will increase from the current three a week to four, the education ministry said.
At elementary schools, textbooks will increase in size by about 24.5 percent on average from fiscal 2011.
The government has been making changes to boost children's academic levels, especially after 2003's disappointing results in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international standardized test conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development every three years since 2000.
In the 2003 testing, conducted among 15-year-old children in 41 countries and regions, Japan's ranking in two of three subjects had dropped more than four places.
After putting in the effort to strengthen literacy, including introducing book-reading time in the morning, the latest 2009 PISA results showed improvement in Japanese students' performance.
Although the data can't simply be compared with previous PISA data because of differences in the number of participating countries, Japan's ranking in reading comprehension rose from 15th place in 2006 to eighth in 2009.
In science literacy, it moved from sixth in 2006 to fifth in 2009, while math literacy improved to ninth in 2009, up from 10th place three years earlier.
Although Japan's rankings are low when compared with other parts of East Asia, including first-time participant Shanghai, which stunned many by dominating the top in all three tests, Japan's academic ability is first-class, said Hiroaki Mimizuka, vice president of Ochanomizu University.
"When looking at the size of participating countries and regions, Japan is the only country in the top 10 with a population of more than 100 hundred million," Mimizuka said. "It depends on how you look at the results, but it can be said that it's possible to force a country with a (population equivalent to that) of Tokyo (to raise its academic level) with a top-down method. But for a country with more than 100 hundred million people, it's difficult to effect change with that approach.
"As such, we shouldn't mimic other countries in setting the nation's educational policy. We should seek our own way to achieve high academic ability."
The biggest hurdle facing Japanese youth today is low aspirations, experts say.
Growing up in a relatively wealthy country with little competitive pressure due to the low fertility rate, many Japanese youth tend to think things will somehow work out and don't push themselves much, Mimizuka said.
As shown in the falling interest in studying abroad, regardless of universities' attempts to send more students overseas, many choose to stay in their comfort zones, experts say.
"There are limits to how much educational content and policy can change. . . . Other social sectors, including education, need to put in the effort and think about what they should do for Japan to survive as well as for the world to flourish," Mimizuka said.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110106f1.html
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Japanese Universities Draw Foreign Students With Manga
TOKYO — When Zack Wood produces his illustrated stories online, his Japanese classmates say they look like American comics while his American friends say they look decidedly like manga, the popular form of comics that originated in Japan.
Zack Wood, a Stanford graduate, enrolled at Kyoto Seika University in Japan to study manga, the popular comic form.
That is precisely the blend Mr. Wood, who grew up in the United States and is now studying at Kyoto Seika University’s manga program, is angling for.
Mr. Wood, a 25-year-old graduate of Stanford University in California, and students like him have gravitated toward the modern Japanese arts, feeling they may help them advance their careers in animation, design, computer graphics and the business of promoting them.
And as Japanese universities work harder to attract students to fill their classrooms while the country’s birth rate declines, more are offering degrees in manga and animation.
“I like it here because you get totally immersed in the skill training” of manga and animation, Mr. Wood said. “It has turned out to be a lot of fun.”
Once they are armed with unique technical and industry knowledge, many international students are eager to gain work experience here upon graduation before heading back home.
Li Lin Lin, 28, a student from northeastern China who attends Digital Hollywood University, a school in Tokyo that specializes in animation and video games, said that upon finishing her degree, it would probably be “easy” to find a job in the animation field in China. The real trophy, she said, was getting job experience in the country of manga. Ms. Li is especially interested in working for a Japanese animation studio.
“I think you can do almost anything back home once you get a degree and animation working experiences in Japan,” said Ms. Li, emerging from her class on digital animation coloring one Saturday afternoon.
Hidenori Ohyama, senior director of corporate strategy at Toei Animation, said it was possible that international students could end up at Japanese companies like his. “If they apply, take our tests and pass, they will become employees just like anyone else,” he said.
His company, a leading animation company that has produced “Dragonball” and “Slam Dunk” films, has Romanian and Korean producers, among other foreign citizens, Mr. Ohyama said.
None of the animation-themed Japanese university programs seem to be on the international radar yet, said Kison Chang, a training manager at Imagi Studios, an international animation production studio based in Hong Kong.
But he said students studying in Japan who ended up with solid work experiences at Japanese studios could be prime candidates for international recruitment.
“They would certainly be a great benefit to our professional line,” he said. “They might bring in some kind of spirit which we may not know, or something we didn’t realize that would be a benefit to us,” he said.
Such individuals are not yet on his teams, nor at any of his rivals, he said.
Another possible reason that the programs have not received international attention is that the language of instruction is Japanese.
Tomoyuki Sugiyama, president of Digital Hollywood University, conceded that language might be a serious barrier, especially for Western students.
“If we had an English-based program at the graduate level, for example, we would be inundated with Western students almost instantly,” he said.
Nevertheless, at Kyoto Seika University, which established the country’s first manga program, the number of foreign students in it has risen to 57 currently out of a total of 800 students in the program from just 19 in 2000.
Since it was founded in 2005, Digital Hollywood University has seen its international students grow to 84 this year, roughly 20 percent of its student body, from just one when the school began.
“I want to see it grow to 50 percent of the entire students in the very near future,” Mr. Sugiyama said.
In the past 10 years, more than a dozen university departments and programs have been created to offer a degree or a cluster of courses meant as a concentration in manga, animation and video games, and a similar number of vocational schools offer training in the art.
At Digital Hollywood, with campus buildings spread across the Akihabara area in Tokyo, the nation’s capital for otaku, or nerds, students from Korea, China, Malaysia, Taiwan and other Asian countries, who constitute the bulk of the international student body, mingle with Japanese students.
The curriculum at the schools usually includes courses on drawing, coloring, and motion picture production, as well as film directing, writing plays and the study of copyright laws.
In recent years, universities in China and Korea have also begun offering manga and animation programs, drawing many students locally. But Keiko Takemiya, dean of the manga program at Kyoto Seika University and a famed manga artist, said there were differences.
“What they teach in Korea is mostly cartoons like you see in the U.S.,” she said. “They don’t quite teach the ‘story manga.”’
Story manga is known for its feature lengths and distinct story lines, as compared with the one-liner cartoons with gags and jokes.
Ms. Takemiya said that manga’s secret was in its limitless boundaries in form and content, and that the sheer number and the kind of manga available in Japan far exceed those in other countries.
And that includes adult-themed manga/animation that may or may not include sexually explicit content that many other countries are staying away from.
“What they teach in China is animation meant for children,” said Mr. Sugiyama of Digital Hollywood. “But what we teach is geared towards both children and adults.”
A professor at Kyoto Seika University, Jacqueline Berndt, one of the few non-Japanese faculty members in the field, said language and culture were an obstacle to wider acceptance of the programs.
In addition, she said, the manga and animation programs might not have yet been fully organized into a coherent body of knowledge and theories that scholars from other countries can understand and appreciate.
One reason the art has never been compiled into a structured body of knowledge: In a country where public education has been strictly administered, manga and animation have thrived in a creative way precisely because they operated outside the purview of the system, free from any supervision from the authorities.
“Manga flourished as a counterculture to the establishment academia,” Ms. Takemiya said. “There was actually a resistance to the idea of organizing the art into an academic program” in the industry.
Most Japanese scholars and teachers acknowledge that the body of knowledge they teach is still in the process of being organized into a system.
“We put together and offer classes that we believe will be of use to people who are going into the trade, but if we wait till manga and animation studies are fully structured and organized academically, that’s too late,” Mr. Sugiyama said. “In a world where creative content is digitalizing and globalizing, we need to train young people in these arts now.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/27/business/global/27manga.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
Zack Wood, a Stanford graduate, enrolled at Kyoto Seika University in Japan to study manga, the popular comic form.
That is precisely the blend Mr. Wood, who grew up in the United States and is now studying at Kyoto Seika University’s manga program, is angling for.
Mr. Wood, a 25-year-old graduate of Stanford University in California, and students like him have gravitated toward the modern Japanese arts, feeling they may help them advance their careers in animation, design, computer graphics and the business of promoting them.
And as Japanese universities work harder to attract students to fill their classrooms while the country’s birth rate declines, more are offering degrees in manga and animation.
“I like it here because you get totally immersed in the skill training” of manga and animation, Mr. Wood said. “It has turned out to be a lot of fun.”
Once they are armed with unique technical and industry knowledge, many international students are eager to gain work experience here upon graduation before heading back home.
Li Lin Lin, 28, a student from northeastern China who attends Digital Hollywood University, a school in Tokyo that specializes in animation and video games, said that upon finishing her degree, it would probably be “easy” to find a job in the animation field in China. The real trophy, she said, was getting job experience in the country of manga. Ms. Li is especially interested in working for a Japanese animation studio.
“I think you can do almost anything back home once you get a degree and animation working experiences in Japan,” said Ms. Li, emerging from her class on digital animation coloring one Saturday afternoon.
Hidenori Ohyama, senior director of corporate strategy at Toei Animation, said it was possible that international students could end up at Japanese companies like his. “If they apply, take our tests and pass, they will become employees just like anyone else,” he said.
His company, a leading animation company that has produced “Dragonball” and “Slam Dunk” films, has Romanian and Korean producers, among other foreign citizens, Mr. Ohyama said.
None of the animation-themed Japanese university programs seem to be on the international radar yet, said Kison Chang, a training manager at Imagi Studios, an international animation production studio based in Hong Kong.
But he said students studying in Japan who ended up with solid work experiences at Japanese studios could be prime candidates for international recruitment.
“They would certainly be a great benefit to our professional line,” he said. “They might bring in some kind of spirit which we may not know, or something we didn’t realize that would be a benefit to us,” he said.
Such individuals are not yet on his teams, nor at any of his rivals, he said.
Another possible reason that the programs have not received international attention is that the language of instruction is Japanese.
Tomoyuki Sugiyama, president of Digital Hollywood University, conceded that language might be a serious barrier, especially for Western students.
“If we had an English-based program at the graduate level, for example, we would be inundated with Western students almost instantly,” he said.
Nevertheless, at Kyoto Seika University, which established the country’s first manga program, the number of foreign students in it has risen to 57 currently out of a total of 800 students in the program from just 19 in 2000.
Since it was founded in 2005, Digital Hollywood University has seen its international students grow to 84 this year, roughly 20 percent of its student body, from just one when the school began.
“I want to see it grow to 50 percent of the entire students in the very near future,” Mr. Sugiyama said.
In the past 10 years, more than a dozen university departments and programs have been created to offer a degree or a cluster of courses meant as a concentration in manga, animation and video games, and a similar number of vocational schools offer training in the art.
At Digital Hollywood, with campus buildings spread across the Akihabara area in Tokyo, the nation’s capital for otaku, or nerds, students from Korea, China, Malaysia, Taiwan and other Asian countries, who constitute the bulk of the international student body, mingle with Japanese students.
The curriculum at the schools usually includes courses on drawing, coloring, and motion picture production, as well as film directing, writing plays and the study of copyright laws.
In recent years, universities in China and Korea have also begun offering manga and animation programs, drawing many students locally. But Keiko Takemiya, dean of the manga program at Kyoto Seika University and a famed manga artist, said there were differences.
“What they teach in Korea is mostly cartoons like you see in the U.S.,” she said. “They don’t quite teach the ‘story manga.”’
Story manga is known for its feature lengths and distinct story lines, as compared with the one-liner cartoons with gags and jokes.
Ms. Takemiya said that manga’s secret was in its limitless boundaries in form and content, and that the sheer number and the kind of manga available in Japan far exceed those in other countries.
And that includes adult-themed manga/animation that may or may not include sexually explicit content that many other countries are staying away from.
“What they teach in China is animation meant for children,” said Mr. Sugiyama of Digital Hollywood. “But what we teach is geared towards both children and adults.”
A professor at Kyoto Seika University, Jacqueline Berndt, one of the few non-Japanese faculty members in the field, said language and culture were an obstacle to wider acceptance of the programs.
In addition, she said, the manga and animation programs might not have yet been fully organized into a coherent body of knowledge and theories that scholars from other countries can understand and appreciate.
One reason the art has never been compiled into a structured body of knowledge: In a country where public education has been strictly administered, manga and animation have thrived in a creative way precisely because they operated outside the purview of the system, free from any supervision from the authorities.
“Manga flourished as a counterculture to the establishment academia,” Ms. Takemiya said. “There was actually a resistance to the idea of organizing the art into an academic program” in the industry.
Most Japanese scholars and teachers acknowledge that the body of knowledge they teach is still in the process of being organized into a system.
“We put together and offer classes that we believe will be of use to people who are going into the trade, but if we wait till manga and animation studies are fully structured and organized academically, that’s too late,” Mr. Sugiyama said. “In a world where creative content is digitalizing and globalizing, we need to train young people in these arts now.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/27/business/global/27manga.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Japanese businesses lose out in hiring of top Chinese talent
In the old days, when the Japanese management style helped to push Japan to the top of the economic stratosphere, Japanese corporations often laughed at the inefficient operations of their Chinese counterparts.
But now, as fast-growing China is set to overtake Japan as the world's second-largest economy, Japanese companies find themselves near the bottom of the pecking order in terms of hiring in China.
The most talented Chinese are flocking to Chinese, U.S. and European companies that offer higher wages and better chances for promotion than Japanese companies. Other skilled workers are fleeing their Japanese employers for more promising futures at Chinese firms.
And even Japanese workers, who could be regarded as the new "cheap labor" in China, are turning to foreign companies.
A job offer posted on a website for MBA graduates from a prestigious Chinese university underscores how rising salaries in China are luring elite workers.
It said: "Offer from a head-hunting firm. Post of deputy manager, sales headquarters, at a major sports gear company. Experience at a foreign firm in the same business required. Annual pay 1.5 million yuan (19.5 million yen, or $230,000)."
"It's adequate because the rivals are such popular makers as Nike of the United States or Adidas of Germany," said a member of the group. "No one would take the post for 1 million yuan."
Until five years ago, 1 million yuan could hire someone as CEO, said pioneer head-hunter Louisa Wong, founder of Bo Le Associates Ltd., a Hong Kong-based executive search company specializing in Chinese.
One million yuan can now hire only up to a business manager, she said.
Foreign companies used to come to China for cheap labor, but they now need market-knowledgeable people who understand regional differences, can liaise with government officials and lead sales strategy in the country.
According to Wong, the annual salary for a CEO is 2 million to 3 million yuan--a level beyond what ordinary Japanese companies can pay to people in charge of their Chinese operations.
Wong said multinational companies want a "superman" who can handle any task related to developing the Chinese market.
She said her business remained brisk even during the financial crisis that started in fall 2008.
Pierre Zhuang, chief of Bo Le's Shanghai operations, worked for the Chinese arm of Suntory Ltd. when he was recruited by Wong to the nascent head-hunting industry.
The market in China grew tenfold in the past 10 years to 20 billion yuan. Zhuang foresees another tenfold increase in the coming decade.
Bo Le has further expanded its business this year by concluding a deal with Japan's Recruit Co., which obtained a 14.3-percent stake in the company.
Dai Huaizong, chief at the Chinese arm of French electronics and cookware maker Groupe SEB, used to work for another European company. He earns nearly 4 million yuan a year, according to a company that head-hunted Dai.
Yao Mumu, 32, who left a foreign accounting firm in Beijing for the post of deputy financial director at a Chinese infrastructure firm, said phone calls from head-hunters are almost an daily occurrence.
A qualified accountant, Yao earns 400,000 yuan a year, far higher than the income for ordinary Chinese business people.
But she says: "The chances are 90 percent that I will switch jobs in five years. My annual income will perhaps be 1 million yuan then."
However, most Chinese aren't automatically offered huge salaries; they have to work at it to reach that level.
The average monthly wage of workers is 3,700 yuan, even in Beijing, where payments are relatively high. And in a tight job market, new college graduates' initial monthly salary is 3,000 yuan on average.
Changing jobs is one common way to increase one's fortunes, according to Zhu Xiaodong, who runs a marketing company in Beijing.
While an employee could expect to earn only up to 10,000 yuan a month after working many years, "the wage will jump to about 50,000 yuan if you switch jobs after getting new qualifications or building careers," he said.
An MBA degree is one of those qualifications deemed a "ticket to high-paying jobs."
About 78,000 people applied to MBA courses in China in 2010, twice as many as three years earlier.
Gao Xudong, director of the prestigious MBA program at Tsinghua University, said a major change has occurred among the course's graduates in the past five years.
"Most obtained jobs in foreign-affiliates before, but now a majority of our students are aiming for places in domestic companies," Gao said.
China's state-owned enterprises were once infamous for their inefficient management. But they are now regarded as the engine for the nation's growth, and they attract MBA holders by offering favorable benefits packages.
One female student in Tsinghua's MBA program worked for Mitsui & Co.'s local operations and then for Toyota Motor Corp.'s joint venture in China.
The 29-year-old says Toyota's inhouse training program was superb, but she found the daily overtime work unbearable.
Her Chinese colleagues, who went to Chinese automakers or Germany's BMW and Daimler, saw their wages almost double.
"(Toyota's) training is excellent, but the working conditions were bad. It has become a reaping ground for other businesses," she said.
The student said that once she obtains her MBA, Japanese companies will be off her radar in terms of employment.
She is not alone. Many who change jobs say they try to avoid Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese companies, which have three problems in common: demanding work, low pay and little chance of promotion.
Personnel resources companies in China say wage levels at U.S. and European companies are about 1.5 times that of Japanese firms.
"If you offer salary levels of the past, then Chinese employees would flee," said Li Jun, 33, who quit an NEC Corp. affiliate to found a venture business in the environment field.
In good years for business, Li earns up to 100 million yen.
Born in a poor village in Sichuan province, Li said: "Because we can't foresee the future (in an unstable society), we want to build assets quickly. Companies are not aware of such pressing needs among Chinese workers."
A 33-year-old Chinese graduate of the University of Tokyo, who works for an independent administrative agency in Japan as a researcher, was surprised when he started looking for work in Beijing.
A major Japanese information technology firm offered only a quarter of what he earns now.
"That's so meager even though prices in Beijing are much lower than in Tokyo," he said.
A Chinese telecommunications firm, on the other hand, offered to match his pay in Japan.
"Chinese pay great attention to room for growth, such as how much the company will grow and what they would be allowed to do there," the man said, adding that Japan today doesn't offer such opportunities.
SEB's Dai also says promotion is a huge factor.
Dai has served as chief of Apple Inc.'s Chinese arm. "If Japanese companies do not entrust the post to Chinese, then they are not among the options."
Bo Le's Wong also points to the low level of CEO salaries at Japanese businesses.
Seeking equality among employees may be a Japanese business feature, but it does not work in China, she said.
Some Japanese corporations, such as trading house Mitsubishi Corp. and machinery maker Komatsu Ltd., are taking steps to promote Chinese employees to executive positions.
A locally hired Chinese was promoted to an executive post at Mitsubishi's Dalian subsidiary last year.
And in the Chinese offices of some major Japanese companies, there are cases where Chinese employees earn more than their Japanese colleagues.
But Jin Rui, general manager of Intelligence (China) Co., a Shanghai affiliate of Intelligence Ltd. of Japan, said most Japanese companies still put too much emphasis on Japanese language proficiency in hiring Chinese.
Meanwhile, as Chinese workers fetch higher salaries, young Japanese have emerged as lower-cost workers.
A 29-year-old Japanese man at a major U.S. call center in Dalian was surprised last summer to find his Chinese colleague was paid 13,000 yuan a month, much more than he got.
The employer raised the wages of Chinese after many hopped to a higher-paying U.S. rival and others demanded pay increases.
In Dalian, many offices are being set up to provide outsourcing services for Japanese businesses.
Such offices used to hire mainly Chinese, but they now are turning more to Japanese, who have difficulty finding jobs back home.
"There have always been openings for Japanese," said Wang Jin, head of Pasona Tech Dalian Co.
Chinese workers capable of speaking Japanese have strong academic backgrounds, but their initial pay is still generally lower than Japanese employees.
But in the industry, Japanese are said to be "low cost on the longer term" because they do not demand pay raises as Chinese do.
Japanese also tend to stay longer at one company, well aware of the tough job situation in Japan.
A major U.S. computer maker is also hiring Japanese for its call center in Dalian. In late October, five were newly employed from Japan, and their comments reflect the vast differences between the Chinese and Japanese job markets.
Ayaka Sakurada, 25, graduated from a British university but could not find a job in Britain or Japan. She has decided to study Chinese, too.
Yusuke Umewaka, 31, earned 270,000 yen a month at an apparel shop in Tokyo, but gave up on the "shrinking" retail sector in Japan.
A 28-year-old man quit a listed Japanese company, where he earned 6 million yen a year. He found his former employer, who rejected his proposals for new business, hopeless.
Junko Oishi, 36, came to Dalian after twice losing temporary staff jobs after the 2008 financial crisis. She says she could not expect to find a good job in Japan.
(This article was written by Tokuhiko Saito and Tetsushi Yamamura.)
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201012270252.html
But now, as fast-growing China is set to overtake Japan as the world's second-largest economy, Japanese companies find themselves near the bottom of the pecking order in terms of hiring in China.
The most talented Chinese are flocking to Chinese, U.S. and European companies that offer higher wages and better chances for promotion than Japanese companies. Other skilled workers are fleeing their Japanese employers for more promising futures at Chinese firms.
And even Japanese workers, who could be regarded as the new "cheap labor" in China, are turning to foreign companies.
A job offer posted on a website for MBA graduates from a prestigious Chinese university underscores how rising salaries in China are luring elite workers.
It said: "Offer from a head-hunting firm. Post of deputy manager, sales headquarters, at a major sports gear company. Experience at a foreign firm in the same business required. Annual pay 1.5 million yuan (19.5 million yen, or $230,000)."
"It's adequate because the rivals are such popular makers as Nike of the United States or Adidas of Germany," said a member of the group. "No one would take the post for 1 million yuan."
Until five years ago, 1 million yuan could hire someone as CEO, said pioneer head-hunter Louisa Wong, founder of Bo Le Associates Ltd., a Hong Kong-based executive search company specializing in Chinese.
One million yuan can now hire only up to a business manager, she said.
Foreign companies used to come to China for cheap labor, but they now need market-knowledgeable people who understand regional differences, can liaise with government officials and lead sales strategy in the country.
According to Wong, the annual salary for a CEO is 2 million to 3 million yuan--a level beyond what ordinary Japanese companies can pay to people in charge of their Chinese operations.
Wong said multinational companies want a "superman" who can handle any task related to developing the Chinese market.
She said her business remained brisk even during the financial crisis that started in fall 2008.
Pierre Zhuang, chief of Bo Le's Shanghai operations, worked for the Chinese arm of Suntory Ltd. when he was recruited by Wong to the nascent head-hunting industry.
The market in China grew tenfold in the past 10 years to 20 billion yuan. Zhuang foresees another tenfold increase in the coming decade.
Bo Le has further expanded its business this year by concluding a deal with Japan's Recruit Co., which obtained a 14.3-percent stake in the company.
Dai Huaizong, chief at the Chinese arm of French electronics and cookware maker Groupe SEB, used to work for another European company. He earns nearly 4 million yuan a year, according to a company that head-hunted Dai.
Yao Mumu, 32, who left a foreign accounting firm in Beijing for the post of deputy financial director at a Chinese infrastructure firm, said phone calls from head-hunters are almost an daily occurrence.
A qualified accountant, Yao earns 400,000 yuan a year, far higher than the income for ordinary Chinese business people.
But she says: "The chances are 90 percent that I will switch jobs in five years. My annual income will perhaps be 1 million yuan then."
However, most Chinese aren't automatically offered huge salaries; they have to work at it to reach that level.
The average monthly wage of workers is 3,700 yuan, even in Beijing, where payments are relatively high. And in a tight job market, new college graduates' initial monthly salary is 3,000 yuan on average.
Changing jobs is one common way to increase one's fortunes, according to Zhu Xiaodong, who runs a marketing company in Beijing.
While an employee could expect to earn only up to 10,000 yuan a month after working many years, "the wage will jump to about 50,000 yuan if you switch jobs after getting new qualifications or building careers," he said.
An MBA degree is one of those qualifications deemed a "ticket to high-paying jobs."
About 78,000 people applied to MBA courses in China in 2010, twice as many as three years earlier.
Gao Xudong, director of the prestigious MBA program at Tsinghua University, said a major change has occurred among the course's graduates in the past five years.
"Most obtained jobs in foreign-affiliates before, but now a majority of our students are aiming for places in domestic companies," Gao said.
China's state-owned enterprises were once infamous for their inefficient management. But they are now regarded as the engine for the nation's growth, and they attract MBA holders by offering favorable benefits packages.
One female student in Tsinghua's MBA program worked for Mitsui & Co.'s local operations and then for Toyota Motor Corp.'s joint venture in China.
The 29-year-old says Toyota's inhouse training program was superb, but she found the daily overtime work unbearable.
Her Chinese colleagues, who went to Chinese automakers or Germany's BMW and Daimler, saw their wages almost double.
"(Toyota's) training is excellent, but the working conditions were bad. It has become a reaping ground for other businesses," she said.
The student said that once she obtains her MBA, Japanese companies will be off her radar in terms of employment.
She is not alone. Many who change jobs say they try to avoid Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese companies, which have three problems in common: demanding work, low pay and little chance of promotion.
Personnel resources companies in China say wage levels at U.S. and European companies are about 1.5 times that of Japanese firms.
"If you offer salary levels of the past, then Chinese employees would flee," said Li Jun, 33, who quit an NEC Corp. affiliate to found a venture business in the environment field.
In good years for business, Li earns up to 100 million yen.
Born in a poor village in Sichuan province, Li said: "Because we can't foresee the future (in an unstable society), we want to build assets quickly. Companies are not aware of such pressing needs among Chinese workers."
A 33-year-old Chinese graduate of the University of Tokyo, who works for an independent administrative agency in Japan as a researcher, was surprised when he started looking for work in Beijing.
A major Japanese information technology firm offered only a quarter of what he earns now.
"That's so meager even though prices in Beijing are much lower than in Tokyo," he said.
A Chinese telecommunications firm, on the other hand, offered to match his pay in Japan.
"Chinese pay great attention to room for growth, such as how much the company will grow and what they would be allowed to do there," the man said, adding that Japan today doesn't offer such opportunities.
SEB's Dai also says promotion is a huge factor.
Dai has served as chief of Apple Inc.'s Chinese arm. "If Japanese companies do not entrust the post to Chinese, then they are not among the options."
Bo Le's Wong also points to the low level of CEO salaries at Japanese businesses.
Seeking equality among employees may be a Japanese business feature, but it does not work in China, she said.
Some Japanese corporations, such as trading house Mitsubishi Corp. and machinery maker Komatsu Ltd., are taking steps to promote Chinese employees to executive positions.
A locally hired Chinese was promoted to an executive post at Mitsubishi's Dalian subsidiary last year.
And in the Chinese offices of some major Japanese companies, there are cases where Chinese employees earn more than their Japanese colleagues.
But Jin Rui, general manager of Intelligence (China) Co., a Shanghai affiliate of Intelligence Ltd. of Japan, said most Japanese companies still put too much emphasis on Japanese language proficiency in hiring Chinese.
Meanwhile, as Chinese workers fetch higher salaries, young Japanese have emerged as lower-cost workers.
A 29-year-old Japanese man at a major U.S. call center in Dalian was surprised last summer to find his Chinese colleague was paid 13,000 yuan a month, much more than he got.
The employer raised the wages of Chinese after many hopped to a higher-paying U.S. rival and others demanded pay increases.
In Dalian, many offices are being set up to provide outsourcing services for Japanese businesses.
Such offices used to hire mainly Chinese, but they now are turning more to Japanese, who have difficulty finding jobs back home.
"There have always been openings for Japanese," said Wang Jin, head of Pasona Tech Dalian Co.
Chinese workers capable of speaking Japanese have strong academic backgrounds, but their initial pay is still generally lower than Japanese employees.
But in the industry, Japanese are said to be "low cost on the longer term" because they do not demand pay raises as Chinese do.
Japanese also tend to stay longer at one company, well aware of the tough job situation in Japan.
A major U.S. computer maker is also hiring Japanese for its call center in Dalian. In late October, five were newly employed from Japan, and their comments reflect the vast differences between the Chinese and Japanese job markets.
Ayaka Sakurada, 25, graduated from a British university but could not find a job in Britain or Japan. She has decided to study Chinese, too.
Yusuke Umewaka, 31, earned 270,000 yen a month at an apparel shop in Tokyo, but gave up on the "shrinking" retail sector in Japan.
A 28-year-old man quit a listed Japanese company, where he earned 6 million yen a year. He found his former employer, who rejected his proposals for new business, hopeless.
Junko Oishi, 36, came to Dalian after twice losing temporary staff jobs after the 2008 financial crisis. She says she could not expect to find a good job in Japan.
(This article was written by Tokuhiko Saito and Tetsushi Yamamura.)
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201012270252.html
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