The arrest of a senior education ministry official on suspicion of accepting a bribe from Tokyo Medical University over the government's research subsidy program may be yet another indication of alleged collusion between the ministry, with its administrative and budgetary powers over education policy, and private universities, which face increasingly tight enrollment competition as the nation's pool of potential students shrinks. The suspected collusion was also believed to be at the root of the scandal that broke last year involving the ministry's bureaucrats landing post-retirement jobs at private universities. The prosecutors' investigation should seek to shed more light on what lies behind the suspected bribery.
Futoshi Sano, 58, director general of the ministry's Science and Technology Policy Bureau, was arrested last week on suspicion of providing a favor to Tokyo Medical University by selecting the institution as a recipient of a government research subsidy in fiscal 2017 in return for the university granting a place to Sano's son after it padded his entrance exam scores. If the allegations are true, the case points to a blatant abuse of administrative power by the senior bureaucrat of the ministry, which is supposed to distribute the subsidy on a competitive basis and provide guidance to universities to ensure fairness in entrance exams.
Under a program launched in 2016 to support the management reform of private universities, institutions across Japan apply for government subsidies for their research projects, and the ministry provides subsidies to select universities after the projects are screened by a panel of experts. The "research branding" program is aimed at helping the universities by promoting research that could potentially develop into hallmark projects.