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This chapter focuses on the relationship between Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 and higher education. Higher education has traditionally been expected to play three significant roles: education, research, and social contribution. However, due to globalization, these societal roles and expectations are gradually evolving. There are two targets under SDG 4 that are directly related to higher education. Target 4.3 aims to “ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational, and tertiary education, including university.” It is noteworthy that the target mentions not only accessibility to higher education, but also quality. Additionally, the Times Higher Education released the Impact Ranking and visualized a university’s global performance, which assesses universities according to the framework of SDGs. Japan was the most represented nation in 2019, highlighting Japanese universities’ active efforts to work on global issues. While various efforts have been made to achieve the indicators of SDG targets, the global impact of COVID-19 has provided a significant opportunity for the role of higher education to be reconsidered. Considering this background, this chapter introduces various activities and initiatives at Japanese higher education institutions, such as the Science and Technology ResearchPartnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS), which promotes international joint research on global issues. Finally, this chapter presents the further expected roles and challenges for higher education in society through the indirect spillover effects on the other goals of the SDGs.

PurposeThis longitudinal study aims to understand the circumstances of and changes in student enrollment in Honduras by comparing geographically and socioeconomically different areas and students' year of school entrance.Design/methodology/approachThe sample was made up of 4,043 students from seven primary schools in a regional city and the capital city. Students' enrollment patterns, schooling and trajectories from entrance to departure, whether as a result of graduating or dropping out, were examined.FindingsThe number of students who graduated without repetition increased, and most of the students accessed primary education at the official entrance age. However, grade repetitions and dropouts were observed in the regional city in particular, and differences were also found in the school departure age by region. In the regional city, continuation of schooling after a change in residence has become more common in recent years. Adopting an automatic promotion policy could be one strategy for reducing grade repetitions and dropouts; however, further discussion is required to prepare a remedial opportunity for students who might otherwise lack the minimum proficiency level.Originality/valueFew studies have examined changes in school enrollment in Honduras from a micro perspective. This study contributes a practical approach to exploring educational trends in the region by explaining how students reached their final grades by tracking trajectories, which has not been observed so far in terms of the accumulated average.

PurposeThis paper reviews the national and institutional internationalization activities in Japan's higher education sector and considers the extent to which these efforts have attempted to incorporate and/or contribute to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).Design/methodology/approachThis paper was developed based on a review of available demographic data on internationalization in Japan (in both English and Japanese), a survey of recent scholarly literature on this topic and conversations with numerous faculty and staff members working on internationalization issues in a wide range of higher education institutions throughout the country.FindingsThere are substantial internationalization efforts being made at both national and institutional levels, yet scholars and practitioners of higher education question the extent to which genuine internationalization is occurring. Moreover, the metrics used to track internationalization are somewhat limited and the available data, in many cases, can be complicated to interpret. A bit of tension also exists in Japanese universities between those who support the movement to internationalize and those who see it as a passing fad, an intrusion on their academic freedom and/or as a guise for Westernization – a tension that some cite, along with language barriers and system misalignment, as a challenge to internationalization.Originality/valueNumerous scholars discuss the internationalization of higher education in Japan. The originality of this paper is in the comparison of Japan's higher education internationalization efforts to the movement to achieve the SDGs – both in Japan and as a global effort.

This study hypothesized that repeating a grade is one reason why Honduran primary students drop out of school but not the main reason. Using longitudinal data, we analyzed student enrollment patterns up until students left school. The results revealed that many students dropped out suddenly without having previously repeated a grade, although many dropouts had also repeated a grade at some point, and repeating a grade experience was not among the most frequently appearing dropout patterns in any of the completed grades. The findings indicated that low expectations of education and the need to enter the labor market were causes of immediate dropout.

While Honduras's post-1990s enrolment status has improved, no reports examine changes in status. We examined changes in enrolment patterns by analysing 1689 children's data using the true cohort me...

Studies have investigated factors that impede enrolment in Honduras. However, they have not analysed individual factors as a whole or identified the relationships among them. This study used longitudinal data for 1971 children who entered primary schools from 1986 to 2000, and employed structural equation modelling to examine the factors themselves as well as the relationships between their components and educational attainment. Findings indicate that reduced educational attainment is not necessarily the result of repetition or dropout. Low educational attainment occurs due to impediments in access to school, absenteeism, or overage, as this leads to a child suddenly leaving school.

G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) mediate responses to many types of extracellular signals. So far, bovine rhodopsin, the inactive form of a GPCR, is the only member of the family whose three dimensional structure has been determined. It would be desirable to determine the structure of the active form of a GPCR. In this paper, we report the large scale preparation of a stable, homogenous species, truncated octopus rhodopsin (t-rhodopsin) in which proteolysis has removed the proline-rich C-terminal; this species retains the spectral properties and the ability for light-induced G-protein activation of unproteolyzed octopus rhodopsin. Moreover, starting from this species we can prepare a pure, active form of pigment, octopus t-Acid Metarhodopsin which has an all-trans-retinal as its agonist. Photoisomerization of t-Acid Metarhodopsin leads back to the inactive form, t-rhodopsin with the inverse agonist 11-cis-retinal. Octopus t-Acid Metarhodopsin can activate an endogenous octopus G-protein in the dark and this activity is reduced by irradiation with orange light which photoregenerates t-Acid Metarhodopsin back to the initial species, t-rhodopsin.