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The article discusses several papers published within the issue including one on the challenges for higher education in Japan of global neoliberalism, another regarding the issues surrounding Chinese higher education and a paper on the relationship between neoliberal globalisation and New Zealand universities.

Abstract: This paper examines the labor market outcomes of two different forms of cross-border higher education degree programs (i.e., study abroad vs. twinning) between Malaysia and Japan. Based on a new graduate survey, it examines whether there are differences in the labor market outcomes between the two programs and what other factors have significant effects on the labor market outcomes. We observed no significant differences in the labor market outcomes between the two programs. Instead, the degree fields, internship, and university rankings are significant for the first employment. For current work, post-graduation qualifications and skills such as English become important. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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]

e-Learning has entered the mainstream in higher education and many institutions are implementing technology-mediated learning at some level. This paper outlines the case of a course taught jointly in 2010 over three months by two graduate programmes in management at the University of Tsukuba in Japan and the Grenoble Ecole de Management in France through a video-conferencing system and other information and communications technology tools. The authors used a blended learning approach aimed at increasing collaboration among instructors and students remotely located. The results of a questionnaire survey of students conducted during the course provide practical recommendations for developing and managing a hybrid course balancing the positive aspects of e-learning with the benefits of face-to-face instruction, while suiting the participants’ cultural learning preferences. Particular insights include selecting a relevant blended learning course topic, addressing student diversity and distinct learning motives, and bringing ‘tangible diversity’ through the exchange of faculty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the impact of the global financial crisis on Japan’s economy, especially on its higher education. The first section provides an overview of Japan’s national economy with a focus on the impact of the global financial crisis on the national economy, then the author touches on the impact on the Japanese government’s finances, and goes on to look at the impact on Japan’s higher education system, concentrating on government expenditure on higher education, student enrolment, changes in funding for national and private institutions as well as trends in tuition and fees in national and private universities. The author concludes by arguing that there is little evidence to show that the global financial crisis has directly affected the Japanese government’s funding of its national or private institutions, nor has it significantly influenced the unemployment rate of university graduates due to the long-standing economic recession, which had occurred prior to the global financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any moves towards substantive equality in education must negotiate the contradictions between equality and efficiency. Equality of education comes about through both the widening of opportunity and the maintenance of educational quality, but in the context of limited resources, educational policy rarely serves both ends simultaneously. Regardless of imperatives involved in making particular policy choices, if the resulting outcomes are either too visible or the system is deemed to be too rigid, social inequality emerges as an intractable, highly salient issue. The critical questions for research thus become: How do various approaches to negotiating this central tension differ? How does the choice of strategies produce different results across different education systems? To explore these questions, this paper examines the function and outcomes of educational differentiation in Japan, both at the secondary and tertiary levels, in relation to social inequality. Given that Japan entered an era of 'universal' access to higher education ahead of other high-income countries, it presents an ideal case to reflect on policy choices currently being considered or implemented elsewhere. Through cross-sectional analyses of three cohorts of Japanese graduates, it reveals that social equality in accessing elite secondary and higher education institutions deteriorates as privatisation of education advances. It concludes that hierarchical structure of secondary and higher education institutions, when coupled with policies advancing privatisation and universalisation, result in negative or inconsequential effects on social equality. [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 will focus on the neo-liberal 'reforms' of Japanese higher education that have taken the form of incorporating national universities, and are now entering a decisive stage one year afterwards. I will also describe the devastation that has resulted from university incorporation. From these descriptions, I will demonstrate how the incorporation of national universities is a typical example of neo-liberal control in present day Japan. Moreover, we will then be able clearly to see the current situation of the weakening of Japanese intellectuals. [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]

This paper aims at investigating Japanese government’s subsidy policy for private universities by applying statistical approaches to various types of quantitative data. Firstly, we briefly describe the history of the government subsidy policy to identify the dominant factors behind it and also explain the structure and mechanism of this subsidy. Secondly, by using 2005 data, we try to find influential factors in allocating both general subsidies and special subsidies for private universities. Thirdly, using the data in two periods given as 1975–1979 and 2000–2004, we try to elucidate the structural properties of the subsidy policy by applying correlative rank analyses approaches in order to measure the “dominance power” of the top-ranking subsidy-recipient schools. The results show that the number of faculty members is the most influential for general subsidies, while the number of students is the most dominant variable for special subsidies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese education has been a focus of comparative studies for the past 20 years. Many scholars have attributed the economic success of this industrialized society to a highly literate and well-educated population. Recent studies, however, have tended to be more critical of, in particular, Japanese higher education (HE). Indeed, most universities in Japan are acutely aware of the need for change and a considerable effort at institutional reform is sweeping the nation. Unfortunately most of the constructive criticism of Japanese HE has not yet been published in English. One of the most vocal of the reformists, Professor Ikuo Amano, has published widely on various aspects of HE in Japan. The following paper is a translation of a chapter in his book Challenges to Japanese Universities. This translation is prefaced by both a synopsis of this book as well as a brief introduction to Amano and his work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a trend toward international collaboration among quality assurance agencies (QAAs) and the internationalisation of higher education in Japan. This paper is examines how Japan University Accreditation Association (JUAA) can establish a network in the region as it promised to do in the Tokyo Declaration. However, it is very hard for JUAA, a private agency without support from the government, to take the initiative to establish the network based on the agreement of governments such as the Bologna Declaration. In the Asia-Pacific region, JUAA can contribute to networking in a different way by acting as a hub agency and by contributing to developing a common evaluation process and tools instead of common evaluation items and indicators. However, JUAA must not become the only hub agency. Collaboration of some hub agencies will lead to a network among QAAs of many countries in the Asia-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the trends in the use of ICTs in Japanese higher education institutions. The author takes a unique perspective as Director of the National Institute of Interactive Multimedia (NIME). As an institute for collaborative use of information technology by national universities, NIME focuses on research and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the globalization of the economy has accelerated in recent years, the Internet has become an essential part of the infrastructure, primarily as a communications medium. In the Information Age society, the ADC principle (autonomy, distribution, and collaboration) has become an underlying assumption, which also applies to the institution of education. The fading power of Japan may come from its educational system, which emphasizes standardization and uniformity, while discouraging creativity and individuality. Now is the time for Japan to reevaluate its educational system at every level so that it better supports the societal and business needs of the Information Age economy. Therefore, this paper proposes five kinds of changes to the Japanese educational system. They are community networks, digital kids and participatory education, growing up digital and youth education, online higher education, and media literacy education for the elderly. First, community networks provide citizens with better and more convenient access to local services, activities, and information. Second, the notion of the digital kid suggests that it should be participatory, including all members of the community. Third, as digital kids grow up digital using the Internet would enhance both intergenerational and intra-generational communication in the twenty-first century. Fourth, online higher education should become widely available in Japanese society in the twenty-first century. Fifth, although media literacy education for the elderly in Japan is yet to come to its maturity, senior network groups are beginning to receive wider attention as they will provide Japanese elderly with a new avenue for communication. When and only when these educational reforms are pursued, will Japanese people be able to participate effectively in the global society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the present situations and issues arising during the introduction of an accreditation system in Japan that includes a bit of the conventional assurance system and its problems, the fundamental policy and criteria of the accreditation system, in particular, educational outcomes criteria. The issues discussed are: (1) grouping of engineering fields and establishing the programme criteria; (2) finance; (3) educational reform; (4) setting educational objectives and evaluation; (5) threshold criteria; and (6) relations with the National Institution for Academic Degrees with regard to university evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of different parties in Japan have been discussing higher educational reform for over thirty years. Many of these ideas finally started to take form in the 1990s as the Ministry of Education's University Council began implementing many of the propositions that had been put forth during the deliberations of the 1970s and 1980s. As Japan enters the 21st century, its 18-year-old population has decreased by over half a million since 1992. It will decrease another 300,000 by the year 2010. This has added an increased urgency to make reforms, especially at third-tier universities, which are now starting to have trouble recruiting students. Japan's Ministry of Education would also like to bring the quality of its university educational standards up to par with the rest of the advanced nations. Moreover, industry is demanding a new breed of employee – and one much different than the Japanese educational system has been known to produce. Finally, a new generation of Japanese is starting to reach adulthood, who – raised on consumerism, and material abundance – have a completely different value system than their parents' generation. This paper looks at the present higher education reform movement and its history extending back approximately thirty years. It then goes on to offer some suggestions as to what more can be done to alleviate many problems still inherent in the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]