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This paper explores the development of the hensachi system in Japanese education from the 1960s when it first appeared as a de facto measure for scholastic achievement. Unlike absolute scoring systems (such as A-level grades) hensachi gave an indication of the probability of getting a place on a particular course at a particular school or university rather than telling applicants where the bar was set in order to have a chance of being offered a place. Private companies quickly saw the opportunity to collate the huge amounts of data needed to obtain accurate hensachi bell curve distributions and began operating practice exams (mogi shiken) in schools across Japan. From the mid-1970s onwards, hensachi increasingly became seen as the source of many educational ‘evils’ in Japan and there were many attempts to ban its use. It was blamed for cramming, examination hell, and a focus on educational scores rather than learning. The system was also being used by teachers and schools to short cut the real examination system. The final section of the paper explores why, despite these concerns, repeated predictions of the demise of hensachi have proved to be premature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This cross-case analysis explores national level internationalisation of higher education (IoHE) policies in Singapore and Japan. Through comparison of the state level internationalisation strategies, this paper aims to highlight how each country's unique policy environment impacts their approach to IoHE. The analysis suggests that despite the differing national circumstances and ultimate approaches to internationalisation, both states use it primarily as a means to stay competitive in the twenty-first century global knowledge-based economy. This suggests that while IoHE does build bridges between nations, institutions, and individuals within and between regions, within these cases it is being driven by nationally-centred rationales. While some criticize a competition orientation in IoHE, even with such rationales it may still serve to drive greater collaboration and integration among East Asian higher education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In research on gender and teaching in higher education, the experiences of male teachers as men, and of whiteness in a non-majority-white context have received little attention. As one step towards addressing this gap in the literature, this paper analyses interview accounts of white Western men working as English language teachers in Japanese higher education. The paper demonstrates, first, ways in which disembodied academic identities are constructed by erasing the men's racialised gender and sexuality. Second, it shows how favourable images of white Western male teachers are produced through a series of negative contrasts based on gender and race. Third, it suggests that men's homosocial networks may serve to facilitate male predominance in the Japanese university system. The analysis contributes to current understandings about the construction of white Western masculinities in academic institutions, in international education, and in English language teaching as a globalised industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to identify key challenges facing Japan's higher education since the early 1990s and their impacts on major research themes. In this paper key challenges include those resulting from the decline in the 18-year population, the cultivation of high-quality university graduates, the incorporation of national universities, the diversification of higher education systems, and globalization and internationalization of higher education. The paper concludes by arguing that challenges facing Japan's higher education and research are unquestionable and considerable. Because several challenges are different from that of any other countries, Japan has to find out solutions to tackle them by its own efforts. Furthermore, in response to these challenges, there has seen an evident transformation in a vast majority of higher education research institutes and centers from a purely academic-based research to more practical and operational research. Besides, at a policy level, numerous research themes and agenda have been developed and implemented by the Japanese government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on various sources of official discourse and public commentary pertaining to the recent implementation of two large-scale strategies aimed at internationalising student and academic staff populations within Japanese higher education institutions, this paper will present a number of broad multifaceted perspectives addressing those issues which may hinder the success of the two strategies. Announced in 2008 and 2009 respectively, the '300,000 international students plan' and the 'Global 30' Project aim to enable 30 select universities to attract 300,000 international students to Japan by 2020. The 30 institutions, known as centres for internationalisation will each strive to recruit between 3000 and 8000 international students from across the globe. However, since the late 19th century Japanese attempts at the importation of ethnolinguistic diversity into the education system have been greeted with accusations of insincerity and the masking of a predominantly self-serving nationalistic agenda. The current paper will also seek to assess whether the self-serving nationalistic argument is still valid in relation to contemporary internationalisation efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the fundamental changes which are currently taking place in Japanese higher education. These changes are seeing the development of what has been dubbed the 'third generation' of Japanese universities which can no longer rely on student fees and government support to survive and need to find other ways to generate income. The paper shows how the different responses of Japanese universities to these new challenges is leading to an increasingly diversified higher education sector with major implications for the future of teaching, research and administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to identify common patterns in central authorities' steering of universities and the institutional power in neo-liberal higher education regimes. The paper examines the regulatory mechanisms of England and Japan through Foucault's idea of 'governmentality' and utilises the concept of autonomy to identify the state-university nexus and institutional behaviour. The paper argues that the similar application of technologies of arts in England and Japan - such as financial incentives and output quality management - has not brought about the same effect across the two countries in institutional behaviour and culture. In the case of England, the decline of traditional university autonomy - which isolated the university sector from external pressure - and increasing external influence in the value system are the case, while in Japan, the shift is rather internal within an institution, changing from department to institutional autonomy, which is compatible with the concept of accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An overseas field learning itinerary can be a powerful pedagogical tool for both directing student attention and complicating preexisting spatial narratives. However, one must beware of using the itinerary to replace one narrative with another. This paper examines the itinerary negotiation for a 15-day overseas field module conducted three consecutive years. It uses the concepts of fan pilgrimage and dark tourism to explain the inclusion of two destinations and introduces a student-led research project that produced nuanced understandings of Japan’s rural geographies. Evidence comes from reflective field diaries, oral debrief sessions, written assignments, and an anonymous post-module survey. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The interpretation and implementation of ideas about the internationalisation of curricula (IoC) are complicated and multi-faceted. The complex and diverse perspectives on IoC reflect two concepts: ‘internationalisation’ and ‘curriculum’. These concepts embody contrasting perspectives on issues, including the competition-type and cooperation-type approaches to internationalisation, as well as the product and process curriculum models. These two approaches or models tend to go hand in hand while in a state of tension. The aim of this paper is to promote a detailed understanding of IoC through forming a conceptual framework for IoC. This framework proposes four patterns of IoC by linking the two approaches and the two models, and is examined using case studies of two types of Japanese universities. Finally, two assumptions are made for future research and development in the practice of IoC beyond Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A number of countries with public higher education systems have implemented privatisation policies. In Japan, the national government introduced the National University Corporation Act (NUCA) in 2004 and changed the legal status of national universities from that of government-owned public institutions to independent administrative agencies. Its objective was to incorporate them, giving their presidents discretionary power and encouraging financial independence and autonomous administration. Applying McNay’s models of university governance, this paper tracks three stages of university governance longitudinally from 1886, when Japan’s modern higher education system was established, to reveal the historical roots of problems that the NUCA is meant to address. In addition, the effects of the NUCA over the first 6-year period (2004–2009) are examined based on data analysis. Its criteria for analysis are developments in the direction of financial, administrative and intellectual independence, accompanied by increased levels of transparency and public accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper compares Japan's university and non-university curriculums for the certified care worker license, and discusses the possibility that the universities' focus on social work education for care workers may result in improving the quality of the workforce and thus the quality of life of older persons in Japan. The demand for professional care workers in Japan is increasing along with demographic changes. In Japan, approximately one-third of direct care workers are nationally licensed as certified care workers (Kaigo-Fukushi-Shi); the rest are unlicensed or are licensed as home helper level 1 or level 2, which licenses are not nationally certified. Most training facilities for certified care workers offer two-year programs, which is the minimum duration of study required by the national Regulations for Designated Training Facilities for Certified Social Workers and Certified Care Workers. Recently, however, an increasing number of universities have begun providing a four-year education for certified care workers. We surveyed 20 four-year universities to compare their curriculums, especially in the area of social work education, with the curriculums of two-year care worker training programs. The universities provided twice as many hours of social work education as did the two-year training courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of a global knowledge-based economy has given rise to drastic changes in both higher education and employment. On one hand, governments in advanced societies have launched policies to expand higher education to compete internationally in educating and attracting highly skilled workers. At the same time, both global economic competition and governmental policies to cut labour costs and increase labour mobility have led to a workforce increasingly polarised between groups of high- and low-skilled workers, the latter face increasing, often intense, job insecurity. These changes, in turn, combine to produce a serious problem of inflation of education credentials. By focusing on social inequality and access to university in Japan specifically, it becomes possible to not only describe this inflation, but also gain insights into the mechanisms behind a clear acceleration in the pace of this phenomenon in recent decades. How has credential inflation unfolded as higher education has expanded to, now, enjoy a degree of 'universality'? How is this credential inflation related to the far-reaching 'privatisation' policies that catalysed that expansion? How are changes and divergences in the values of university degrees linked with changes in influences of individuals' familial background? How do these values determine distributions into various strata of employment? By analysing nationally sampled, longitudinal survey data of Japanese youth, this paper seeks to answer these interwoven questions empirically, by focusing on recent developments in Japan, a national case where the relevant issues emerge in stark relief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Global 30 Project, a new Japanese Government initiative that aims to upgrade a number of existing universities to form a select hub of elite universities for receiving and educating international students, has come in for considerable criticism. Using the dual concepts of kokusaika (internationalisation) and gurōbaruka (globalisation), this paper highlights the contradictory goals in a policy that combines a nationalistic 'closing in' with a cosmopolitan 'opening up'. The problems apparent in Japan's most recent attempt to reform higher education are argued to be the latest manifestation of a historical push and pull that can be traced back to the sakoku (closed-country) policy of isolation operated during the Edo period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares and evaluates teacher induction in Canada and Japan, following an overview of each educational system and an assessment of higher education in each region. Based on the author's personal teaching experience and research, suggestions for educational reforms are made to enhance the role of teachers. Teachers need opportunities to learn from one another and to benefit from the accumulated wisdom of generations of skilled practitioners. Moreover, teachers need time for collaboration, planning and reflection. Canada's strengths lie in well-developed pre-service teaching programmes. However, graduates are left to 'sink or swim' in their critical first year of teaching. In contrast, Japan's comprehensive yearlong internship offers an effective apprenticeship induction model with an emphasis on assistance rather than assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]