Students from a total of 66 universities in and outside Japan including Harvard have organized the summer schools in which Japanese high school students divided into small groups can participate in English lectures and workshops to broaden their views for their future career planning. The schools will run in August.   The summer schools will be held in Tokyo, Nagano, Tokushima….Read more

About 60 percent of teachers at public junior high schools in Japan worked at least 60 hours per week in fiscal 2016, beyond the dividing line used by the state for determining death from overwork, an education ministry survey revealed Friday.   Compared with the previous survey conducted for fiscal 2006, work hours went up for all job titles at….Read more

A government council on fiscal and economic policy was held on April 25, at which private sector members proposed establishing a system to facilitate mergers between struggling private universities with state-run universities and withdrawal from university operations in order to improve the allocation efficiency of government funding and establish an environment that offers quality education. The council aims to reflect….Read more

Summary of student recommendation guidelines for high school admission with financial aid Requirements Students of households exempt from residence tax Earned either: 1. outstanding grades, or 2. success in extracurricular activities No essential requirements for students raised in orphanages other than being strong candidates to achieve outstanding academic performance in college Screening process Each school to disclose recommendation criteria Consideration to be given for….Read more

The proportion of children in Japan who dislike studying surges after they enter junior high school, reaching 60 percent in their second year, a new survey has found.   The survey, released last week, was conducted by the University of Tokyo and Japanese correspondence education service provider Benesse Holdings Inc. between July and August in 2015 and again in 2016.….Read more

It’s midnight at the convenience store I often patronize near my home in Tokyo’s central Shinjuku district. The store’s open all day and night, 365 days a year.   There is one man I’ve seen quite a bit of lately — behind the counter, stocking shelves, carrying heavy boxes, cleaning, cooking food, ringing up purchases, barristering, giving out raffle tickets,….Read more

Japan’s prestigious Kyoto University will offer a new graduate program specializing in hospitality for the service industry in April 2018 by teaming up with Cornell University in the U.S. Some Japanese schools already run a tourism course. But it is rare to offer a MBA course for nurturing management specialists for the service industry by introducing hotel management know-how from….Read more

LOS ANGELES – The hand-wringing in the wake of the disappointing results of the survey of 12,850 public junior high and high school students about English education is understandable. Despite earnest efforts by teachers to meet the goals established by the education ministry, only 36.1 percent of third-year junior high school students scored at Grade 3 or higher on the….Read more

Monthly allowances given by parents to students who entered private colleges in the Tokyo metropolitan area last spring dropped for the 16th straight year, a survey has showed.   The average allowance per month for first-year students at school away from home fell by ¥1,000 from the previous year to ¥85,700, according to the survey released Wednesday by the Tokyo….Read more