Transcript Facilitating higher education mobility for the future views from Japanese context Akiyoshi Yonezawa CAHE, Tohoku University.

Facilitating higher education
mobility for the future
views from Japanese context
Akiyoshi Yonezawa
CAHE, Tohoku University
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Japan in a global policy context
• Abe (2006-2007): maintain a leading position in Asia by
opening up Japanese society
– ‘Internationalization of Japanese HE’ became one of top policy
agenda
• Fukuda (2007-2008) : Education as a diplomatic tool
– Plan for inviting 300,000 international students
– Global 30: select 30 universities for supporting
internationalization
– Proposal of Asian ‘ERASMUS’
• Aso (2008- ): Aiming to take a leadership for tackling with
Economic Crisis
– Central Council for Education (Advisory Council for MEXT) starts
discussion on roadmap for improving global competitiveness
and internationalization of HE
2
Japanese HE and Globalization
• Highly privatized international student market
– 80 to 90 % of international students are technically self-financed
– Relying on the over-demand in neighboring countries, and oversupply in home HE market
• Internationalization in two arenas (Global/domestic: Teichler 1999)
– Non-English speaking but substantially large
• Demographic pressure both in society as a whole
– Low birth rate, decreasing youth population, aging (Yonezawa &
Kim 2008)
– Retirement of first baby boomers and unpopularity of engineering
profession among youngsters
• Rapid growth and internationalization of neighboring countries
• Limited scholarships for studying abroad by home students
Number and Share of International
Students in Japan (2006)
China
South Korea
Taiwan
Malaysia
Viet nam
United States
Thailand
Indonesia
Bangkadesh
Slilanka
Others
Total
74292
15974
4211
2156
2119
1790
1734
1553
1456
1143
11499
117927
63.0%
13.5%
3.6%
1.8%
1.8%
1.5%
1.5%
1.3%
1.2%
1.0%
9.8%
100.0%
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Two types of approaches for
internationalization
1. (mainly national universities): strengthen the
research capacities to internationally
competitive levels: but relying on domestic
grants (international reviews becoming
common)
2. (mainly private universities): improve the quality
of education to meet international standards:
quality assurance including foreign accreditation,
benchmarking etc.
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Profile of Top 200 Japanese
Universities (QS/THES 2008)
Overall score
International students
score
Peer review score
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Employer review score
University of Tokyo 19
Kyoto University 25
Osaka University 44
Tokyo Institute of Technology 61
Tohoku University 112
Nagoya University 120
Staff/student score
Kyushu University 158
Hokkaido University 174
Waseda University 180
Kobe University 199
International staff score
Citations/staff score
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Singapore
Germany
France
Malaysia
Mexico
China
South Korea
North Korea
Afghanistan
Macau
Japan, Mongolia, Lao
Cambodia
100
97
88
87
85
78
77
69
67
66
65
63
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Classes taught in English
• Bachelor programs
– 0%: 29.1% (national: 16.7%, private: 31.6%)
– 10% or more: 18.5% (n: 8.3%, p: 19.8%)
• Master programs
– 0%: 58.1% (n: 23.3%, p: 67.8%)
– 10% or more: 9.5% (n: 23.3%, p: 6.8%)
• Doctorate programs
– 0%: 66.5% (n: 25.9%, p: 76.3%)
– 10% or more: 10.3% (n: 25.9%, p: 7.1%)
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Internationalization & Finance
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
All
national
private
Only if financially beneficial
If not financial burden
Expect non-monetary benefits
No expectation on financial returns
Others
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Linkage with labor market:
• Recruitment fit for long-term employment in a
homogeneous culture by Japanese firms
– Job hunting long before graduation with timeconsuming selection process
– In-house promotion linked with seniority based
salary scheme: unattractive for non-Japanese
white-collar workers and high-skilled professionals
– Lack of career path to be a leader capable for
managing multi-national enterprises
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Salary increase of MBA holder (Kato
2003)
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Facilitating higher education mobility
for the future in Japanese context
• Mismatch between policy vision for ‘a global leader’ and reality in
HE far from cosmopolitan environment
• Different agenda are dealt with in a single word
– Research is stressed at national universities, while curriculum/teaching
is put importance at private universities
– Hierarchies: majorities are relatively domestic or local
• Danger: Internationalization of HE will become a dead letter?
– Manipulation for achieving an ambitious goals: Redefinition of
‘international students’, discussion for developing Japanese original
‘world university rankings’
• Internationalization through internal resources
– Lack of regional-level funds to rely on, no market competitiveness in
English-based education services
• Need for structural change of Japanese society as a whole
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Merci bien!
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