Global Competitiveness of Japan’s universities under scrutiny

12 comments

1. I taught at one of the top universities in Japan for thirteen years. My impression was that the general education bit was a bit lacking in standards -we had some truly shocking teachers and courses.

   On the other hand the department level teaching/research was world class in some areas.

   Compared to the uni I attended in the UK (one of the better ones) I would say the quality here was not as good, but I don’t know what more normal unis are like back home…

2. The overall sketch seems right to my experience at Japanese universities; there’s a few problems in the details and some things that aren’t really that connected thrown in.

   I think it’s important to distinguish between the intelligence and capacity of individual researchers and students and the institutional structure. There’s definitely some highly intelligent and capable faculty at some universities, but the net sum of it doesn’t make a good learning environment overall.

   That being said, I wonder how much of how good I thought my education was in the US is nostalgic memories and/or a function of the specific institutions I attended. Anecdotal readings about the situation in higher ed there from the late 2010s and beyond suggests that an era of strong education in the us has passed.

3. There’s a lot of wasted time that could be spent improving courses and classes. The article was spot on about meetings just being a verbal reading of what is already written. I’ve usually finished everything I need to know in 30 minutes, but still have to sit through a 2-3 hour meeting.

   For once today, I was able to get two different teachers to sit down with me and go over how to adapt a text into a more communicative activity. They eventually got it done, and one even said he learned a lot how to approach a text and think about how to present it. Felt good. But it’s taken me months of verbally arguing that they need to take more responsibility rather than just depending on my work and ideas. I mean I’ll take the win. But there is so much unnecessary time wasted. It’s like grumbling for 50 minutes to clean a room that only takes 5 minutes to clean.

4. There is a lot in the article and too much to go into in a post like this. Some of it I agree with and some of it I have some objections. I don’t have the time for a point-by-point analysis/rebuttal, but I thought the best part of the article was at the end:

   >Chasing rankings that are compiled in countries that are culturally more oriented toward individualism, and coincidentally tend to rate their own universities highest, seems like it will always be a losing proposition.

   This is so true. Japan’s universities are failing by western standards, but should we really be judging them by western standards? This not only happens at the international level by things like the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (whose criteria are clearly biased against non-English speaking universities) but also at the individual level by people here on this sub who, despite having an incomplete understanding of what happens at Japanese universities, deride them as theme parks and pay-for-play.

   But the last paragraph is absolutely spot on:

   >“MEXT should stop focusing on ‘global competitiveness’ and start focusing on local sustainability,” says Peter Hourdequin, an associate professor at Tokoha University in Shizuoka Prefecture. “I think universities should be held to account for how they contribute to the communities within which they exist.”

   Exactly. Well said Peter. In the end, it doesn’t matter how the universities here stack up against universities in North America or Europe. What matters is how well do they provide value for their local, regional and national communities. And in that sense I feel that a lot of, but not all of, Japanese universities are doing just fine.

5. I have conflicting experiences

   On the one hand, I studied at national university in Japan as part of of my undergraduate degree, and although the classrooms were a bit outdated, the overall quality of teaching was as good as my university back home. Since then I heard that the campus has had some quality of life upgrades, so I’m guessing it is on par with a similar sized university back home.

   On the other hand, at work I often pass classrooms with lecturers sat down reading directly from text books or just reading off slides for 90 minutes. Its pretty pathetic. And people wonder why Japanese students are so demotivated.

   There is a great book written about 20 years ago about university ‘education’ in Japan called ‘Japanese Higher Education as Myth’.

6. My only reservation when it comes to these conversations in these spaces is how obnoxious it is when the criticism that should be weighed against the institutions is instead casually dismissive of or insulting towards people who try to operate within the systems as they are.

   Yes, there are egregious institutional issues.

   No, that does not mean people who function within them aren’t capable or aren’t the real thing.

   If we can keep the focus on the system and not the people, that’s when it’s productive. It’s just tiring when you spot a knee-jerk reactionary dunk on the legitimacy of a professor because of where they are, not who they are or what they’re capable of or the body of work they have done.

   This happens. When the thread gains more traction, look and see if you notice.

7. Did you just get to Japan?

8. This was going to be my “take” of the month for the Water Cooler thread. Now I have to come up with something new.

   As mentioned, the new system is the continuation of the TGUP, except instead of focusing on internationalization as a whole thye are dividing the funding based on different specific sections.

   Just as the previous iterations, the funding is focused on making the top schools even better while leaving everyone else in the dust.

   Reasoning can be found in the laissez-faire attitude of MEXT in relations to universities (the same reason there are so many small lower-level universities all around Japan). They will fund the top and let the others die if needed.

   The hope is that those top unis elevate the overall status of Japanese education making them desirable for international students. The ultimate goal (as mentioned in a MEXT document) is to model the UK higher education system. Higher education in the UK is a multi-billion dollar industry that brings a lot of foreign spending inside the UK creating a very large industry. For example, my master course had maybe 2 Chinese students in the cohort, however the parallel cohort on campus had about 15. That is a lot of incoming money.

   But as we know, the Japanese bureaucracy causes issues when internationalizing to be in the top universities in the world. Universities were supposed to be spending money on creating systems to encourage foreign hires and students to join Japanese institutions. However, a lot was spent on events and contract international hires instead of creating the infrastructure and manpower to maintain these long term.

9. Having taught in 5 private universities as an adjunct for the past 4 years. My feeling is that it’s more or less a free for all. As long as you don’t have students complaining most administration doesn’t care what or how you teach.

   I have seen and heard of all kind of shenanigans like students leaving class 45 minutes early every week, students sleeping or watching movies during class. But I also know many hard working and dedicated teachers who try to demand the best from students. It just seems like they trust teachers will do a good job based on their resume. I literally havent had an observation in the past 5 years so I hope I am doing a good job.

10. Of course learning how to be Japanese is the priority! We are in Japan.

11. The point people often miss for undergrads, is that in Japan, companies do the training of their freshman employees, and thus they don’t care what they have studied (aside from medicine and law). University is only there to demonstrate the ability of a student to abide and succeed with a task given, hence the name recognition: the better university, the harder it is to get, thus the more able the student is in theory.

    What the student learns at uni during their degree is of zero utility for them or for the companies that will employ them since these companies will train them from scratch to fit into their own system.

    Students know that, teachers know that, employers know that, so nobody cares about what is taught at uni.

12. I can understand the two paragraphs you quoted to a degree, but they don’t seem to respond to the main concern of the article. Given our globally-oriented society, shouldn’t universities be producing students prepared to compete within it? Pumping out students only prepared to operate in a narrow, self-reinforcing Japanese context seems a bit short-sighted.