Japan

by Paul Bacsich (Sero), Gertjan (ATiT) and Daniela Proli (SCIENTER) with advice from colleagues at NIME and the Open University of Japan

For entities in Japan see Category:Japan

Partners and experts in Japan

There is no partner in Japan for Re.ViCa, VISCED or POERUP.

We are being helped by Terumi Miyazoe of the Tokyo Denki University.

Japan in a nutshell

(sourced from Wikipedia)

Japan (日本 Nihon or Nippon?, officially 日本国 Nippon-koku?·i or Nihon-koku) is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters which make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin country", which is why Japan is sometimes identified as the "Land of the Rising Sun".

Source : http://www.cia.gov

Japan comprises over 3,000 islands making it an archipelago. The largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for 97% of Japan's land area. Most of the islands are mountainous, many volcanic; for example, Japan’s highest peak, Mount Fuji, is a volcano. Japan has the world's tenth largest population, with about 128 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.

A major economic power, Japan has the world's second largest economy by nominal GDP and the third largest in purchasing power parity. It is a member of the United Nations, G8, G4, OECD and APEC, with the world's fifth largest defense budget. It is also the world's fourth largest exporter and sixth largest importer. It is a developed country with high living standards (8th highest HDI) and a world leader in technology, machinery, and robotics.

The English word Japan is an exonym. The Japanese names for Japan are Nippon (にっぽん) and Nihon (にほん). They are both written in Japanese using the kanji 日本. The Japanese name Nippon is used for most official purposes, including on Japanese money, postage stamps, and for many international sporting events. Nihon is a more casual term and the most frequently used in contemporary speech.

Both Nippon and Nihon literally mean "the sun's origin" and are often translated as the Land of the Rising Sun. This nomenclature comes from Imperial correspondence with Chinese Sui Dynasty and refers to Japan's eastward position relative to China. Before Japan had relations with China, it was known as Yamato and Hi no moto, which means "source of the sun".

Japan is a constitutional monarchy where the power of the Emperor is very limited. As a ceremonial figurehead, he is defined by the constitution as "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people". Power is held chiefly by the Prime Minister of Japan and other elected members of the Diet, while sovereignty is vested in the Japanese people. The Emperor effectively acts as the head of state on diplomatic occasions. Akihito is the current Emperor of Japan. Naruhito, Crown Prince of Japan, stands as next in line to the throne.

Japan's legislative organ is the National Diet, a bicameral parliament. The Diet consists of a House of Representatives, containing 480 seats, elected by popular vote every four years or when dissolved and a House of Councillors of 242 seats, whose popularly-elected members serve six-year terms. There is universal suffrage for adults over 20 years of age, with a secret ballot for all elective offices.

The Prime Minister of Japan is the head of government. The position is appointed by the Emperor of Japan after being designated by the Diet from among its members and must enjoy the confidence of the House of Representatives to remain in office. The Prime Minister is the head of the Cabinet (the literal translation of his Japanese title is "Prime Minister of the Cabinet") and appoints and dismisses the Ministers of State, a majority of whom must be Diet members.

While there exist eight commonly defined regions of Japan, administratively Japan consists of forty-seven prefectures, each overseen by an elected governor, legislature and administrative bureaucracy. The former city of Tokyo is further divided into twenty-three special wards, each with the same powers as cities.

The nation is currently undergoing administrative reorganization by merging many of the cities, towns and villages with each other. This process will reduce the number of sub-prefecture administrative regions and is expected to cut administrative costs.

Japan has dozens of major cities, which play an important role in Japan's culture, heritage and economy.

Japan's population is estimated at just over 127 million. For the most part, Japanese society is linguistically and culturally homogeneous with small populations of foreign workers, Zainichi Koreans, Zainichi Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese Brazilians and others. The most dominant native ethnic group is the Yamato people; the primary minority groups include the indigenous Ainu and Ryukyuan, as well as social minority groups like the burakumin.

Japan has one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world, at 81.25 years of age as of 2006. The Japanese population is rapidly aging, the effect of a post-war baby boom followed by a decrease in births in the latter part of the twentieth century. In 2004, about 19.5% of the population was over the age of 65.

The changes in the demographic structure have created a number of social issues, particularly a potential decline in the workforce population and increases in the cost of social security benefits such as the public pension plan. Many Japanese youth are increasingly preferring not to marry or have families as adults. Japan's population is expected to drop to 100 million by 2050 and to 64 million by 2100. Demographers and government planners are currently in a heated debate over how to cope with this problem. Immigration and birth incentives are sometimes suggested as a solution to provide younger workers to support the nation's aging population. The highest estimates for the amount of Buddhists and Shintoists in Japan is 84-96%, representing a large number of believers in a syncretism of both religions. However, these estimates are based on people with an association with a temple, rather than the number of people truly following the religion. Professor Robert Kisala (Nanzan University) suggests that only 30 percent of the population identify themselves as belonging to a religion.

Taoism and Confucianism from China have also influenced Japanese beliefs and customs. Religion in Japan tends to be syncretic in nature, and this results in a variety of practices, such as parents and children celebrating Shinto rituals, students praying before exams, couples holding a wedding at a Christian church and funerals being held at Buddhist temples. A minority (2,595,397, or 2.04%) profess to Christianity.[90] In addition, since the mid-19th century, numerous religious sects (Shinshūkyō) have emerged in Japan, such as Tenrikyo and Aum Shinrikyo (or Aleph).

About 99% of the population speaks Japanese as their first language. It is an agglutinative language distinguished by a system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary which indicate the relative status of speaker and listener. According to a Japanese dictionary Shinsen-kokugojiten, Chinese-based words comprise 49.1% of the total vocabulary, indigenous words are 33.8% and other loanwords are 8.8%. The writing system uses kanji (Chinese characters) and two sets of kana (syllabaries based on simplified Chinese characters), as well as the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals. The Ryukyuan languages, also part of the Japonic language family to which Japanese belongs, are spoken in Okinawa, but few children learn these languages. The Ainu language is moribund, with only a few elderly native speakers remaining in Hokkaidō. Most public and private schools require students to take courses in both Japanese and English.

Education in Japan

Policy

Primary, secondary schools and universities were introduced into Japan in 1872 as a result of the Meiji Restoration. Since 1947, compulsory education in Japan consists of elementary school and middle school, which lasts for nine years (from age 6 to age 15). Almost all children continue their education at a three-year senior high school, and, according to the Ministry, about 75.9% of high school graduates attend a university, junior college, trade school, or other post-secondary institution in 2005.

Japan's education is very competitive, especially for entrance to institutions of higher education.

The two top-ranking universities in Japan are the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University. The Programme for International Student Assessment coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Japanese knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds as the 6th best in the world.

Japan education system

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Japan)

After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the methods and structures of Western learning were adopted as a means to make Japan a strong, modern nation. Students and even high-ranking government officials were sent abroad to study, such as the Iwakura mission. Foreign scholars, the so-called o-yatoi gaikokujin, were invited to teach at newly founded universities and military academies. Compulsory education was introduced, mainly after the Prussian model. By 1890, only 20 years after the resumption of full international relations, Japan discontinued employment of the foreign consultants.

The rise of militarism led to the use of the education system to prepare the nation for war. The military even sent its own instructors to schools. After the defeat in World War II, the allied occupation government set an education reform as one of its primary goals, to eradicate militarist teachings and "democratize" Japan. The education system was rebuilt after the American model.

The end of the 1960s were a time of student protests around the world, and also in Japan. The main subject of protest was the Japan-U.S. security treaty. A number of reforms were carried out in the post-war period until today. They aimed at easing the burden of entrance examinations, promoting internationalization and information technologies, diversifying education and supporting lifelong learning.

Schools in Japan

Kindergarten and Nursery school

Early childhood education begins at home, and there are numerous books and television shows aimed at helping mothers of pre-school children to educate their children and to "parent" more effectively. Much of the home training is devoted to teaching manners, proper social behavior, and structured play, although verbal and number skills are also popular themes. Parents are strongly committed to early education and frequently enroll their children in preschools.

Kindergartens (yochien 幼稚園), predominantly staffed by young female junior college graduates, are supervised by the Ministry of Education, but are not part of the official education system. The 58% of kindergartens that are private accounted for 77% of all children enrolled. In addition to kindergartens there exists a well-developed system of government-supervised day-care centers (hoikuen 保育園), supervised by the Ministry of Labor. Where as kindergartens follow educational aims, preschools are predominately concerned with providing care for infants and toddlers. Same as kindergartens there are public or privately run preschools. Together, these two kinds of institutions enroll well over 90% of all preschoolage children prior to their entrance into the formal system at first grade. The Ministry of Education's 1990 Course of Study for Preschools, which applies to both kinds of institutions, covers such areas as human relationships, environment, words (language), and expression. Starting from March 2008 the new revision of curriculum guidelines for kindergartens as well as for preschools came into effect.

Elementary school

More than 99% of children are enrolled in elementary school. All children enter first grade at age six, and starting school is considered a very important event in a child's life.

Virtually all elementary education takes place in public schools; less than 1% of the schools are private. Private schools tended to be costly, although the rate of cost increases in tuition for these schools had slowed in the 1980s. Some private elementary schools are prestigious, and they serve as a first step to higher-level private schools with which they are affiliated, and thence to a university.

Junior high school

Lower secondary school covers grades seven, eight, and nine, children between the ages of roughly 12 and 15, with increased focus on academic studies. Although it is still possible to leave the formal education system after completing lower secondary school and find employment, fewer than 4% did so by the late 1980s.

Like elementary schools, most lower-secondary schools in the 1980s were public, but 5% were private. Private schools were costly, averaging 558,592 yen (US$3,989) per student in 1988, about four times more than the 130,828 yen (US$934) that the ministry estimated as the cost for students enrolled in public lower secondary schools. Teachers often majored in the subjects they taught, and more than 80% graduated from a four-year college. Classes are large, with thirty-eight students per class on average, and each class is assigned a homeroom teacher who doubles as counselor. Unlike elementary students, lower-secondary school students have different teachers for different subjects. The teacher, however, rather than the students, moves to a new room for each fifty-minute period.

Instruction in lower-secondary schools tends to rely on the lecture method. Teachers also use other media, such as television and radio, and there is some laboratory work. By 1989 about 45% of all public lower secondary schools had computers, including schools that used them only for administrative purposes. Classroom organization is still based on small work groups, although no longer for reasons of discipline.

All course contents are specified in the Course of Study for Lower-Secondary Schools. Some subjects, such as Japanese language and mathematics, are coordinated with the elementary curriculum. Others, such as foreign-language study, usually English, begin at this level. The curriculum covers Japanese language, social studies, mathematics, science, music, fine arts, health, and physical education. All students also are exposed to either industrial arts or homemaking. Moral education and special activities continue to receive attention. Many students also participate in after-school sport clubs that occupy them until around 6pm most weekdays.

A growing number of JHS students also attend Juku, private extracurricular study schools, in the evenings and weekends. A focus by students upon these other studies and the increasingly structured demands upon students' time have been criticized by teachers and in the media for contributing to a decline in classroom standards and student performance in recent years.

The ministry recognizes a need to improve the teaching of all foreign languages, especially English. To improve instruction in spoken English, the government invites many young native speakers of English to Japan to serve as assistants to school boards and prefectures under its Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. By 1988 participants numbered over 1,000. This program seems to be being phased out in many areas where the supply of foreign native speakers facilitates their employment through less expensive private agencies.

(Senior) High school

Even though upper secondary school is not compulsory in Japan, 99% of all lower secondary school graduates entered upper secondary schools as of 2005. Private upper-secondary schools account for about 55% of all upper-secondary schools, and neither public nor private schools are free . The Ministry of education estimated that annual family expenses for the education of a child in a public upper-secondary school were about 300,000 yen (US$2,142) in both 1980s and that private upper-secondary schools were about twice as expensive.

The most common type of upper-secondary schools has a fulltime, general program that offered academic courses for students preparing for higher education and also technical and vocational courses for students expecting to find employment after graduation. More than 70% of upper-secondary school students were enrolled in the general academic program in the late 1980s. A small number of schools offer part-time or evening courses or correspondence education.

The first-year programs for students in both academic and commercial courses are similar. They include basic academic courses, such as Japanese language, English, mathematics, and science. In upper-secondary school, differences in ability are first publicly acknowledged, and course content and course selection are far more individualized in the second year. However, there is a core of academic material throughout all programs.

Vocational-technical programs includes several hundred specialized courses, such as information processing, navigation, fish farming, business English, and ceramics. Business and industrial courses are the most popular, accounting for 72% of all students in full-time vocational programs in 1989.

Most upper-secondary teachers are university graduates. Uppersecondary schools are organized into departments, and teachers specialize in their major fields although they teach a variety of courses within their disciplines. Teaching depends largely on the lecture system, with the main goal of covering the very demanding curriculum in the time allotted. Approach and subject coverage tends to be uniform, at least in the public schools.

Training of disabled students, particularly at the uppersecondary level, emphasizes vocational education to enable students to be as independent as possible within society.

Vocational training varies considerably depending on the student's disability, but the options are limited for some. It is clear that the government is aware of the necessity of broadening the range of possibilities for these students. Advancement to higher education is also a goal of the government, and it struggles to have institutions of higher learning accept more disabled students.

Further and Higher education

As of 1991, more than 2.1 million students were enrolled in 507 universities. At the top of the higher education structure, these institutions provide four-year training leading to a bachelor's degree, and some offer six-year programs leading to a professional degree. There are two types of public four-year colleges: the ninety-six national universities (including the Open University of Japan) and the thirty-nine local public universities, founded by prefectures and municipalities. The 372 remaining four-year colleges in 1991 were private.

The overwhelming majority of college students attend full-time day programmes. In 1990 the most popular courses, enrolling almost 40% of all undergraduate students, were in the social sciences, including business, law, and accounting. Other popular subjects were engineering (19%), the humanities (15%), and education (7%).

The average costs (tuition, fees, and living expenses) for a year of higher education in 1986 were 1.4 million yen (US$10,000). To help defray expenses, students frequently work part-time or borrow money through the government-supported Japan Scholarship Association. Assistance also is offered by local governments, nonprofit corporations, and other institutions.

The two top-ranking universities in Japan are often said to be the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University.

Universities in Japan

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_Japan - which may not be up to date)

University Entrance

College entrance is based largely on the scores that students achieved in entrance examinations (nyūgaku shiken (入学試験, nyūgaku shiken?)). Private institutions accounted for nearly 80% of all university enrollments in 1991, but with a few exceptions, the public national universities are the most highly regarded. This distinction had its origins in historical factors - the long years of dominance of the select imperial universities, such as Tokyo and Kyoto universities, which trained Japan's leaders before the war--and also in differences in quality, particularly in facilities and faculty ratios. In addition, certain prestigious employers, notably the government and select large corporations, continue to restrict their hiring of new employees to graduates of the most esteemed universities. There is a close link between university background and employment opportunity. Because Japanese society places such store in academic credentials, the competition to enter the prestigious universities is keen.

Students applying to national universities take two entrance examinations, first a nationally administered uniform achievement test and then an examination administered by the university that the student hopes to enter. Applicants to private universities need to take only the university's examination. Some national schools have so many applicants that they use the first test, the Joint First Stage Achievement Test, as a screening device for qualification to their own admissions test.

Such intense competition means that many students can not compete successfully for admission to the college of their choice. An unsuccessful student can either accept an admission elsewhere, forego a college education, or wait until the following spring to take the national examinations again. A large number of students choose the last option. These students, called ronin, meaning masterless samurai, spend an entire year, and sometimes longer, studying for another attempt at the entrance examinations.

Yobiko are private schools that, like many juku, help students prepare for entrance examinations. While yobiko have many programs for upper-secondary school students, they are best known for their specially designed full-time, year-long classes for ronin. The number of applicants to four-year universities totaled almost 560,000 in 1988. Ronin accounted for about 40% of new entrants to four-year colleges in 1988. Most ronin were men, but about 14% were women. The ronin experience is so common in Japan that the Japanese education structure is often said to have an extra ronin year built into it.

Yobiko sponsor a variety of programs, both full-time and part-time, and employ an extremely sophisticated battery of tests, student counseling sessions, and examination analysis to supplement their classroom instruction. The cost of yobiko education is high, comparable to first-year university expenses, and some specialized courses at yobiko are even more expensive. Some yobiko publish modified commercial versions of the proprietary texts they use in their classrooms through publishing affiliates or by other means, and these are popular among the general population preparing for college entrance exams. Yobiko also administer practice examinations throughout the year, which they open to all students for a fee.

In the late 1980s, the examination and entrance process were the subjects of renewed debate. In 1987 the schedule of the Joint First Stage Achievement Test was changed, and the content of the examination itself was revised for 1990. The schedule changes for the first time provided some flexibility for students wishing to apply to more than one national university. The new Joint First Stage Achievement Test was prepared and administered by the National Center for University Entrance Examinations and was designed to accomplish better assessment of academic achievement.

The Ministry of Education hoped many private schools would adopt or adapt the new national test to their own admissions requirements and thereby reduce or eliminate the university tests. But, by the time the new test was administered in 1990, few schools had displayed any inclination to do so. The ministry urged universities to increase the number of students admitted through alternate selection methods, including admission of students returning to Japan from long overseas stays, admission by recommendation, and admission of students who had graduated from upper-secondary schools more than a few years before. Although a number of schools had programs in place or reserved spaces for returning students, only 5% of university students were admitted under these alternate arrangements in the late 1980s.

Other college entrance issues include proper guidance for college placement at the upper-secondary level and better dissemination of information about university programs. The ministry provides information through the National Center for University Entrance Examination's on-line information access system and encourages universities, faculties, and departments to prepare brochures and video presentations about their programs.

Types of Universities

There are two types of public four-year colleges: the 96 national universities (including The Open University of Japan) and the 39 local public universities, founded by prefectures and municipalities.

The 372 remaining four-year colleges in 1991 were private.

The overwhelming majority of college students attend full-time day programmes. In 1990 the most popular courses, enrolling almost 40% of all undergraduate students, were in the social sciences, including business, law, and accounting. Other popular subjects were engineering (19%), the humanities (15%), and education (7%).

The average costs (tuition, fees, and living expenses) for a year of higher education in 1986 were 1.4 million Yen, of which parents paid a little less than 80%, or about 20% of the average family's income in 1986. To help defray expenses, students frequently work part-time or borrow money through the government-supported Japan Scholarship Association. Assistance also is offered by local governments, nonprofit corporations, and other institutions.

In 1991 women accounted for about 27% of all university undergraduates, and their numbers were slowly increasing. Women's choices of majors and programs of study still tend to follow traditional patterns, with more than two-thirds of all women enroll in education, social sciences, or humanities courses. Only 15% studied scientific and technical subjects, and women represented less than 3% of students in engineering, the most popular subject for men in 1991.

The quality of universities and higher education in Japan is internationally recognized. There are 11 Japanese universities in the 2006 THES - QS World University Rankings, with the University of Tokyo 19th and Kyoto University 29th.

For a full list see the list of universities in Japan at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Japan

Postgraduate Education

Graduate schools became a part of the formal higher education system only after World War II and are still not stressed in the 1990s. Even though 60% of all universities have graduate schools, only 7% of university graduates advance to master's programs, and total graduate school enrollment is about 4% of the entire university student population.

The pattern of graduate enrollment is almost the opposite of that of undergraduates: the majority (63%) of all graduate students are enrolled in the national universities, and it appears that the disparity between public and private graduate enrollments is widening. Graduate education is largely a male preserve, and women, particularly at the master's level, are most heavily represented in the humanities, social sciences, and education. Men are frequently found in engineering programs where, at the master's level, women comprise only 2% of the students. At the doctoral level, the two highest levels of female enrollment are found in medical programmes and the humanities, where in both fields 30% of doctoral students are women. Women account for about 13% of all doctoral enrollments.

The generally small numbers of graduate students and the graduate enrollment profile results from a number of factors, especially the traditional employment pattern of industry. The private sector frequently prefer to hire and train new university graduates, allowing them to develop their research skills within the corporate structure. Thus, the demand for students with advanced degrees is low.

Polytechnics in Japan

Junior Colleges

Junior colleges - mainly private institutions - are a legacy of the occupation period; many had been prewar institutions upgraded to college status at that time. More than 90% of the students in junior colleges are women, and higher education for women is still largely perceived as preparation for marriage or for a short-term career before marriage. Junior colleges provide many women with social credentials as well as education and some career opportunities. These colleges frequently emphasize home economics, nursing, teaching, the humanities, and social sciences in their curricula.

Special Training Schools

Advanced courses in special training schools require uppersecondary-school completion. These schools offer training in specific skills, such as computer science and vocational training, and they enroll a large number of men. Some students attend these schools in addition to attending a university; others go to qualify for technical licenses or professional certification. The prestige of special training schools is lower than that of universities, but graduates, particularly in technical areas, are readily absorbed by the job market.

Miscellaneous Schools

In 1991 there were about 3,400 predominantly private "miscellaneous schools," whose attendance did not require uppersecondary school graduation. Miscellaneous schools offer a variety of courses in such programs as medical treatment, education, social welfare, and hygiene, diversifying practical postsecondary training and responding to social and economic demands for certain skills.

Colleges in Japan

Most colleges of technology are national institutions established to train highly skilled technicians in five-year programs in a number of fields, including the merchant marine. Sixty-two technical colleges have been operating since the early 1960s. About 10% of college graduates transfer to universities as third-year students, and some universities, notably the University of Tokyo and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, earmarked entrance places for these transfer students in the 1980s.

These colleges are unique in that they accept students after three years of secondary school (grade 9 in the North American system or year 10 in the British system). The five year programme includes a general education programme at the beginning and then becomes increasingly specialized.

A recent white paper from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology indicated that the colleges of technology are leaders in the use of internships, with more than 90% of institutions offering this opportunity compared to 46% of universities and 24% of junior colleges.

For more details see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleges_of_Technology_(Japan)

ICT in education initiatives

Virtual initiatives in universities

Open University of Japan

The Open University of Japan, formerly the University of the Air (Hoso Daigaku) is the largest distance learning institution of higher education, with 89,000 enrolments in 2002. Though it is the most obvious candidate to develop e-learning, it was slow in responding to the new environment, possibly reflecting its national status and limited budget, the prevalence of part-time teaching staff, and its limited administrative capacity. This has now changed in the last year.

NIME

The National Institute of Multimedia Education (NIME) started off life as an inter-university research institute and had many similarities to national iniatitives such as SURF and Norway Opening Universities.

In April 2004, NIME ceased to be an inter-university research institute and became an independent administrative institution. While this organizational change was not without a degree of confusion, NIME was evaluated for the first time in 2005, earning considerable praise for the way it had managed to continue with its original work and at the same time launch some new activities.

Further changes in NIME's remit have occurred, refocussing it towards serving the research and development needs of the Open University of Japan.

Innovative universities

Past attempts by Japanese universities to offer Internet-based classes have been of an experimental nature, with the main objective being limited to the advertisement of the universities concerned. Since the change in the regulations in 2001, there have been more serious attempts to set up e-learning courses including at some top-ranking universities. Two such examples among the national universities are Tohoku University in the Miyagi prefecture and Shinshu University in Nagano. Tohoku University’s plan is a very bold and comprehensive one, while Shinshu University’s programme is far more grounded and has already made some concrete progress.

Two top private universities, namely Keio University and Waseda University, both have solid track records in experimentation with e-learning and are also each actively planning to open an Internet school in the near future. Keio has a distance education course; Waseda has night schools that already offer about 30 on-demand video streaming lectures on the Internet. Among the CEO judged awards, Keio won four awards, Waseda five, and Ritsumeikan three.

Tohoku University

The university was the first to start comprehensive and virtual graduate programmes in Japan, in an ambitious programme called the Internet School of Tohoku University (ISTU). The programme envisages a full-fledged graduate school covering political science, literature, economics, law, engineering, international relations, medicine, pharmacology, dentistry, and education. It plans to set up satellite campuses in Japan and also to seek affiliation with universities overseas. The initial offerings will be limited to the engineering divisions. An intermediate goal is to have 40% of all courses on campus on the Internet by the year 2007. In 2002, the university concurrently set up a new department called Education Informatics that will support the operation of the ISTU.

Shinshu University

Starting in April 2002, the university opened an e-learning graduate course on information technology leading to a doctoral degree. (See http://cai.cs.shinshu-u.ac.jp/sugsi/Nyushi/sugsi/sugsi-press.html.) There were more than 1000 inquiries after the announcement and now there are 81 students enrolled – with 80% of them holding full time jobs. The digital content is open to the public and fully accessible, including the interactive programmes. They accepted the first batch of students while the contents were not ready, but the production is in progress at a fairly good pace. (See http://server1.int-univ.com/CaiSupport/)

Keio University

Keio is advanced in its use of the Internet and its applications. In 1990, it opened its Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC), which received wide and positive publicity for its innovative undergraduate and graduate education; this fosters individual creativity while establishing IT as an integral element of education. Celebrated as one of the most significant higher education innovations, the SFC attracted top-calibre students and established its name not only in the IT world but also in other policy fields. Prior to SFC, Keio had established the WIDE Project in 1988, with a consortium of over 100 universities and corporations, which in turn spun off the first Internet provider in Japan, Internet Initiative (IIJ). WIDE is now responsible for the operation of a DNS server and is also experimenting with IPv6. Another programme under WIDE is the School of the Internet (SOI), which is experimenting in e-learning with six participating universities, including the University of Tokyo and Chiba Commerce University. The programme records live lectures that are later put on the Internet; an interesting feature is that students’ work is left on the Internet for mutual evaluation.

Waseda University

Waseda has been experimenting with an international collaboration in the use of a video conferencing system, called Cross Cultural Distance Learning (CCDL), which has a membership of 21 universities from 21 countries, including the Universities of Edinburgh and Essex. (See https://ccdlsrv.project.mnc.waseda.ac.jp/ccdl/index.asp.) CCDL is a part of a broader Waseda programme, called Digital Campus Consortium. It has also set up a subsidiary company called Waseda Learning Square to provide life-long learning courses. While its overall reputation trailed behind Keio for some time in the late 1980s and early 1990s, today it has re-established its brand with a wide range of initiatives from new professional graduate schools to new campus plans.

Ritsumeikan University

Ritsumeikan is another well-respected private university that has established its repu-tation on the basis of its innovative reform measures in the 90s. It is well known, but had always been considered as the least desirable of the six best private schools in the Kansai area (of Western Japan close to Osaka). Under the strong leadership of its chairman, who used to be a non-faculty administrator within the university, it opened its Kusatsu Campus, which is now well-known for its forward thinking in educational content; it has been launching all initiatives from IT education, outsourcing in order to develop creative linkages with local industry. While Ritsumeikan has no specific plan for e-learning, it has the management style and ability to move quickly, unlike many other universities.

Sanno University

Sanno (The University of Industrial Productivity) launched several courses in business-related skills such as accounting, though their delivery is limited to fairly conventional access to video with limited interactivity.

Other institutions

For more details see the report The e-University and Potential Markets in Japan at http://www.matic-media.co.uk/ukeu/UKEU-r05-japan-2005.doc for information.

National initiatives - [MEXT"|MEXT]

(sourced from http://www.nime.ac.jp/reports/004/pdf/report2006.pdf)

In recent years, changes in the environment surrounding higher education and the progress of ICT

have led to an increasing need for education that is effective, efficient, and based on the demands for the greater sophistication and diversification of educational content. Education using ICT and elearning are increasingly being introduced as methods to meet these needs, and their promotion is seen as an important issue in government policy.

The New IT Reform Strategy by the Government (January 2006) and the Priority Policy Program 2006 (July 2006), formulated by the government’s Strategic Headquarters for the Advanced Information and Telecommunications Network Society (IT

Strategic Headquarters), state that the government will:

aim to increase by more than double the ratio of undergraduate faculties and graduate schools which implement e-learning education or distance learning using the Internet, improve cooperation between domestic/international universities and companies as well as promote the further education of members of society through the promotion of e-learning education programs using the Internet at universities, etc.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has been conducting its Support Program for Contemporary Educational Needs, since 2004. Under this program, the theme of the development of e-learning programs for fostering human resources in line with needs was suggested, and education using ICT and e-learning are being promoted. By this promotion theme of the Ministry, 13 universities or colleges of technology were selected for financially support to develop e-learning courses in 2006. Responding to this state of affairs, our research, which was conducted in collaboration with MEXT, offers an analysis of the current state of education using ICT at Japan’s higher education institutions and the inherent issues, and also aims to provide some basic data and information to address policy issues surrounding higher education and IT strategy

References

Report on education using ICT including e-Learning, 2006 (for tertiary education in Japan)

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