JAPANESE TERTIARY EDUCATION
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specialized training for a state mission of “modernization” to a more general liberal
arts approach in an age of “internationalization” (Atagi 1997) making it the second
largest and one of the most diverse tertiary education systems in the world.
The examination system, the phenomena of “credentialized society,” and
hensachi grades (norm-referenced scoring system for secondary school leavers)
label and rank institutions and their graduates in a hierarchical fashion. Within the
university itself, the working characteristics and academic qualifications of the
professoriate point to the autonomous nature of the profession and the surprising
emphasis on administrative activities as the defining aspect of work. Although in
the language of the kyōju themselves this administrative work is disparagingly
referred to as zatsugyō (miscellaneous or idle work), administrative activities hold
great import in the actual social world of the kyōju—their working lives are often
defined by this type of work.
The organization of daigaku and kyōju reveals a dichotomy of full-time (sen’in
kyōin) and part-time ( hijōkin kyōshi) academic staff, a heavy reliance on part-
timers for much of the teaching, and a certain liminal nature of part-time
professors’ status within the daigaku community. The consensus-seeking nature of
decision-making at committee and faculty meetings, and the conflict that often
ensues at such events, can be explained to a certain degree by through examining
the Japanese concepts of nemawashi (spadework), kaizen (incremental
improvement), and hansei (self-criticism) and the ritualized language of the aisatsu
genre.
CHAPTER 2
REFORM OF JAPANESE HIGHER EDUCATION
Around the world, institutions involved with tertiary education are being
challenged to change. The “demands on HE outrun the capacity to respond” as
societies in many of the OECD countries rush toward not merely mass, but
universal higher education (Clark 1997a, p. 291). Of course Japan is not exempt
from these pressures and, having one of the largest tertiary educational systems in
the world, is more challenged by change than most and certainly a participant in
the globalization phenomenon of HE (Shiozawa 2000). In fact, depending on how
one defines “reform” (cf. Cummings 2003), it can be argued that the change
sweeping tertiary education is, as one scholar has dubbed it, “The Third Great
Reform of the Japanese Education System” (Hood 2003).
GAIATSU: THE UNIVERSITY IN CRISIS
In this section the challenges that face the Japanese HE system are examined,
focusing on the work of Amano Ikuo, a leading researcher in the field. His writing
on HE reform, some of which I have translated for publication (Amano & Poole
2005), clearly explains the dilemma facing daigaku.
As Tsuruta (2003) and others have pointed out, over the past few decades,
higher education schooling in Japan has reached a state of massification and
universal levels of enrollment. Recently the phenomenon of declining birthrate has
presented a challenge for institutions of higher education because of the steady
drop in enrollment numbers at many of the less elite institutions around the
country. Though external competition, economic recession, political developments,
and market changes are all factors driving the HE reform process, the demographic
pressure is arguably the greatest impetus for change at Japanese universities. The
population of 18-year-olds reached a peak of over 2 million in 1992 and has since
dropped to 1.5 million in 2000 and an estimated 1.2 million in 2010—a decline of
41 percent in 18 years (Doyon 2001, p. 445; Goodman 2001b, p. 16). This means
that now in 2009, the places available at HEIs more or less equal the number of
applicants. Consequently, of course, universities are seeking to expand the market.
One way they are doing this is by offering more noncompetitive, community-
college type of extension courses and programs to serve the local working
populaces for retraining and continuing education. Recruiting of foreign students,
especially from other Asian countries, is another strategy that has heated up with
the 2009 MEXT program (“Global 30”) to increase this number to 300,000, as is
an expansion in postgraduate programs (Ishikawa 2009). Though the competition
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CHAPTER 2
to enter elite universities will continue to be fierce, lower-ranked institutions are
already beginning to feel the crunch of survival of the fittest (Amano 2001). The
numbers for 2005 indicate that nearly a third of Japan’s private four-year
universities and well over a half of the private two-year colleges failed to reach
their enrollment targets. Since tuition fees account for over two-thirds of a private
institution’s income, their economic viability is clearly being threatened as
universities are being forced to find new markets for students. One of Japan’s most
vocal reformists and respected commentators, Amano Ikuo (1999), explains that
although in the past HE has been predominately a stagnant seller’s market in Japan,
demographics and other pressures are transforming this into a more diversified
buyer’s market.
Amano on University Reform
Amano (1999) purports that the greatest challenge to universities is marketization.
Since deregulation efforts in Japan started in the 1980s and 1990s, for the world of
higher education as well, under the simultaneous control and protection of the
government, “liberalization,” “diversity,” and “individualization” became the
slogans of university reform. Amano points out that behind such catchwords—
“individualization” (koseika), “diversification” (tayōka), and “zest for living”
(ikiru chikara)—is this central ideology of deregulation. This reform was designed
to “get rid of controls or weaken [the Japanese Ministry of Education],”
liberalization that, of course, the ministry initially opposed (Hood 2001b, p. 106).
Included in this problem—university reform accelerated by the low position of
Japanese higher education in the eyes of the world—was an assertion, voiced since
the seventies, that in order to activate research into education as well as to measure
the rise in standards, regulations must be relaxed and a principle of competition
should be adopted for the allocation of resources. A crisis in the universities and a
structural change in higher education was brought about not only by the
development of a mass education symbolized by a tremendous increase in the
number of university-bound students, but this sudden start of politicization was a
result of Japanese society and the economy itself facing difficult times. Amano
points out that the severity of the challenge facing universities bespeaks just how
high the expectation is for these institutions.
Amano feels that the educational research activities and administration modus
operandi of universities are distinct from for-profit enterprises, and they cannot be
expected to completely adopt competition and market principles. He also asserts
that universities are not immune from marketization forces. As for the national
universities, Amano suggests that these institutions have begun to be regarded as a
sort of Orwellian Big Brother Japan. Journalists in Japan visiting the research
facilities of national institutions dubbed them “a coffin of brains” (Arimoto 1997,
p. 204). Trends toward adopting market and competition principles and the demand
for the self-government of the university’s management bodies is a worldwide one,
observes Amano. “It can be said that the ‘contemporary’ universities that were
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