Temple University, Japan Campus (TUJ) announced on Sept. 9 that it will establish a scholarship program for students graduating from national and public high schools in Japan to cover all of their TUJ tuition costs until they graduate. The program will be funded by a private donation of $4.5 million (approx. 500 million yen) from Mochida Masanori, president of the….Read more

After many twists and turns in pursuit of a noble ideal, attempts to reform the university entrance exam system have floundered, unable to resolve certain practical problems.   Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister Koichi Hagiuda has officially announced that plans have been dropped for the introduction of open-ended questions and private-sector English tests on the Common Test for….Read more

YUKI FUJITA, Nikkei staff writer   TOKYO — As Japanese universities fall further in global rankings, the government is launching a new 10 trillion yen ($91 billion) endowment fund designed to help them better compete with top institutions around the world.   Just two Japanese universities made the top 200 in the World University Rankings 2021 compiled by British magazine….Read more

Sunday’s Nikkei wrote that the GOJ will conduct a review of the Beijing-funded educational organizations known as Confucius Institutes that operate on university campuses in Japan out of concern that the institutes are being used as a propaganda tool of the Chinese government. The GOJ is also concerned that important security-related technology could be leaked to the Chinese side through personal exchanges involving the institutes. The Education Ministry will….Read more

NHK reported this morning that a group led by Tokushima University Associate Professor Yamamoto Tetsuya conducted a survey of about 20,000 people in ten prefectures that were under a state of emergency in February. According to the network, the survey found that among the approximately 2,100 people aged 18 to 29, 22.8% were in a state of depression requiring medical….Read more

Tokyo, May 26 (Jiji Press)–A government survey has found that 56.9 pct of students at universities and other schools in Japan are satisfied with online classes, far higher than 20.6 pct who answered the opposite.     The education ministry survey, conducted on the internet in March, covered 3,000 randomly sampled students at universities, junior colleges and vocational high schools, with 1,744 of….Read more

Saturday’s Sankei reported that the number of researchers specializing in Japanese affairs has been declining in the U.S. in the past ten years or so due in part to the continued decline in the country’s presence in the international community and decrease in financial support by the Japanese government and corporations. The paper claimed there is only one scholar specializing in Japan at Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research….Read more

By Prof. Kiyoteru Tsutsui, director of Japan Program at Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University    A while ago, there were influential Japan scholars in the U.S. who exerted an impact on formulation of U.S. public opinion and policy toward Japan. More recently, however, the number of Japan scholars is declining, while those who study China are on the rise. What are the implications of this phenomenon?    Japan scholars are disappearing from U.S. university   campuses. In 2019, the Association for Asian Studies sponsored an academic….Read more

Ritsumeikan University and its partner, University of California, Davis (UCD), have developed an online study abroad program. Eighty Ritsumeikan students will participate in two UCD classes for about one month. Ritsumeikan plans to initiate similar programs with its other partner universities.   On weekday mornings, Ritsumeikan students in Japan will take UCD classes on English language and Sustainable Development Goals….Read more

By Ryuichi Kitano, staff writer   Students born more than 20 years after the Vietnam War ended are shedding new light on Japanese involvement in the conflict through interviews with some of the participants and related people.   One of the works by members of the lab of Ryoichi Matsuno, a journalism studies professor at Chuo University’s Faculty of Global….Read more