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EDITORIALS
Mar 22, 2014

Kyoto University's bold hiring move

The recent news that Kyoto University will publicly seek candidates for its next president from abroad, as well as from Japan, may come as a shock to some in academia.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2012

Reform means the world for Todai

When Japan's leading university announced in January that it intends to shift undergraduate enrollment from spring to autumn in line with colleges worldwide, the plan created waves far beyond the academic world.
COMMENTARY
Sep 14, 2010

Higher education is worse since policy switch in 1991

For the past two decades, the education ministry has worked hard to reform Japan's university system. In fiscal 1991, the ministry adopted the policy of giving priority to postgraduate programs, leading a number of national universities to change gakubu — traditional undergraduate-level entities such...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Nov 1, 2009

Susan Schmidt: Honored U.S. beacon for Japan

Susan Schmidt is a former editor at the University of Tokyo Press who spent 20 years living and raising a family in Japan up until the mid-1990s. She is now executive director of the U.S.-based, 1,500-member Alliance of Associations of Teachers of Japanese — a role in which she has not only helped...
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2005

Perks elude foreign campuses in Japan

Sara Meshino goes to Temple University Japan Campus in Minato Ward, Tokyo, and takes classes in English, paying 472,500 yen for nine credits this semester from September to December.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Nov 6, 2021

Surveillance in the academy: Hong Kong's new compulsory national security courses

Last month, several thousand Hong Kong university students, some of them under the watch of a closed-circuit TV camera, were the first to take compulsory courses on the territory’s national security law.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Jul 27, 2016

What to expect when applying for college overseas

In a few weeks, my daughter, an American-Japanese dual national born, raised and mostly educated in Japanese in Japan, will begin her first year of higher learning at her dream school — Middlebury College, one of America's oldest liberal arts institutes.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 26, 2015

Abe government targets the liberal arts

Over the past several weeks I have received many emails from all over the world asking me if reports about government plans to pull the plug on humanities and social sciences departments at Japanese national universities are accurate or just a bad joke. At this point it's not clear exactly what the government...
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Mar 5, 2012

Todai plan to shift school year could be catalyst for wider Japanese reforms

The University of Tokyo, locally known as Todai, has announced a draft plan to shift the start of its academic year from spring to autumn and called on 11 other major universities to join it. Public discussion of the proposal has been immense since the announcement in mid-January, and for good reason....
COMMENTARY
Dec 3, 2003

Lots of debate, little action

The problems with Japan's education system are well known -- poor teaching in the universities; class disintegration (gakkyu hokai) in the schools -- to name but a few. So many students, unwilling to put up with the pressures and rigidities of the existing school system, are now dropping out of school...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 6, 2002

Takafumi Goda: the man at the helm

As director of the university division of the higher education bureau at the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, Takafumi Goda is at the helm of national policy on university education. Recently, one of his chief tasks has been to oversee long-awaited reforms to Japan's university...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2022

U.S. higher education is about to get even more political

Critics of the U.S. President Joe Biden's college loan-forgiveness program see it as rewarding Democratic interests, so Republicans may retaliate at their first opportunity.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 28, 2020

The shape of post-pandemic university education

Will online teaching and distance learning become the 'new normal'?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 29, 2020

Tax incentives needed to promote recurrent education

There are no countries in the world that do not wish for eternal prosperity. Nothing can ensure such prosperity except education of their people. Many people may take that to mean school education for children and youth. However, what will be far more important going forward will be recurrent education,...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 28, 2019

What it takes to foster innovation in Japan

The key concepts behind innovation are diversity and excellent higher education.
Japan Times
SPORTS
Jun 29, 2017

Plan to reform Japanese college sports greeted with mixture of hope, skepticism

Discussions over the introduction of a "Japanese version of the NCAA" to oversee this country's collegiate sports have prompted positive and negative reactions since they began last year.
JAPAN
Apr 20, 2012

Overseas studies to get funding push

The education ministry plans to fund about 40 universities that launch programs to encourage more Japanese to study overseas, with the aim of nurturing globally minded human resources.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 5, 2005

Will Japanese inertia never be the same again?

Who is to blame for the dead hand of inertia that has prevented Japan from forging ahead economically and politically in the last decade and a half?
Japan Times
JAPAN / SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT
Mar 31, 2004

Colleges hope new law schools will boost student numbers

With the nation's birthrate falling and the number of high school graduates in steady decline, institutions of higher learning have been scrambling to maintain student levels.
JAPAN
Oct 24, 2003

Schools told to return tuition fees to students who didn't enroll

Four universities in Tokyo were handed a court order Thursday to return a total of 4.8 million yen in prepaid tuition fees to people who passed their entrance exams but did not enroll.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2003

U.S.-style law schools to offer practical approach

More than five years of study -- at cram schools, not universities -- has been the norm to pass Japan's extremely competitive bar exam.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Top Global Universities in Japan
Oct 5, 2020

Creating a better future through liberal arts education

Established in 1953 in Mitaka, Tokyo, International Christian University (ICU) is one of the few universities in Japan to have a College of Liberal Arts, and it has focused on liberal arts education since its founding. Classroom buildings and facilities are located on a wooded campus of about 620,000...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Top Global Universities in Japan
Oct 5, 2020

University, campus redefined for post-coronavirus era

Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the significance of universities and their campuses both have been coming into question.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 23, 2020

U.S. college admissions are about to get even more unfair

The pandemic will make institutions even more eager to admit wealthy legacy students.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / The Big Questions
Feb 16, 2020

Long road ahead in push for globalized education

From the economic boom of the '70s and '80s to the collapse of the bubble economy and the ensuing 'lost decade,' Bruce Stronach — Dean of Temple University Japan (TUJ) — has witnessed Japan undergo several significant transformations.
Japan Times
JAPAN / AEC SPECIAL
Jan 29, 2016

Sophia exchange program offers expanded horizons

Eighteen students, including those from Southeast Asia, Japan and other parts of the world, were divided into four groups to hold intense discussions in English about various global sustainability issues. They were creating a rough draft of a poster they would use for next week's presentation.
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Sep 21, 2015

Medical services in Tokyo area in danger of collapsing

Key players in Kanto-area medical services are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet — and the higher consumption tax is the prime culprit.
EDITORIALS
Jun 29, 2015

Declining research capabilities

Japan's ability to create new industries will suffer if steps are not taken to bolster the nation's scientific research capabilities.

Longform

The byzantine process for converting a foreign driver’s license into a Japanese one entails mountains of paperwork and significant stamina — unless you're a lucky license holder from a country or region where these requirements are waived.
Driving in Japan isn’t hard. Getting the license is.