Universities set to accept Brazilian science majors

by

Staff Writer

Japanese universities are being asked to accept about 1,300 Brazilian science majors over the next three years in a program funded by the South American country aimed at building its industrial development and helping Japanese firms advance into its market, government officials said Tuesday.

According to the plan, the 1,300 will include 550 students seeking a Ph.D., 350 doctorate candidates who will study for one year and 100 undergraduates, said Kenji Shimboku, an official with the student exchange department of the Japan Student Services Organization.

The plan is a response to the Brazilian government’s scholarship program, which aims to nurture human resources in the fields of science and technology as well as to boost the country’s global competitiveness.

Some in Ph.D. programs already enrolled this month, while the program for undergraduates is starting in the fall, according to Shimboku.

Participating schools include Hokkaido University, the University of Tokyo and Osaka University.

The scholarship program, which was announced by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in April 2011, is funded by the Brazilian government.

In this country, the Foreign Ministry is asking firms doing business in Brazil to hire Brazilian students as interns, a ministry official said, in order “to help cultivate Brazilians who are familiar with Japan.”

“It will eventually contribute to enhancing economic exchanges between Japan and Brazil, if people who did internships work for Japanese companies later,” the official said.

  • Nicholas Hideki Koga

    There’s a big gap of quality between Brazilian universities (except USP and Unicamp) and Japanese Universities. Just another act of the Brazilian government to try to impress the population by sending students to study abroad. Don’t think that any university students here will be able to do so, except those ones coming from USP and Unicamp

  • Nicholas, USP and UNICAMP are really excelent universities, this is a fact that we can’t deny. But I really think that you’re making a huge mistake when you say that only USP and Unicamp students can study abroad. We have several excellent federal universities in Brazil, not only federal universities, but even private universities. Besides, we have a lot of students from different universities studying out of Brazil, and believe me, they do not disappoint in terms of discipline and knowledge.