The post-secondary education business has entered dire straits in Japan. With the ever declining birth rate, schools across the nation are struggling to keep enrollments up.
In Fukuoka, Nishi-Nippon Junior College believes it has an attractive solution to this problem: the “Department of Media Promotion,” more casually referred to as the “Idol Training Department.”
It seems that this new course aims to attract young women hoping to pursue a career as an idol. However, for the most part, the department’s main purpose seems to be to provide an entertaining elective course for students with other majors.
In addition to regular elective courses in law and political science, students who chooses to major in Media Promotion will have to endure a grueling curriculum of courses in manners, audition strategies, modeling, make-up, and more.
Don’t be fooled into thinking this is a bird course though. According to a report by J-Cast, the dance class is extremely severe and involves heavy chastising of students who don’t go all out in while dancing in skimpy outfits.
If you’re the parent of teenage girl then you’d probably not be thrilled to set her up for a career in writing on herself over Twitter. On the other hand, if I was a teenage boy getting ready for college, I think I’d definitely be exploring education opportunities at Nishi-Nippon Junior College, the student body looks like it’s about to improve considerably.
The establishment of the department was kicked off by Aya Sugimoto, a well-known talent, especially for her work with Sola Aoi.
Source: Nishi-Nippon Junior College via J-Cast (Japanese)
© RocketNews24
14 Comments
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gaijinfo
I'm not sure that the ability to stand there and get yelled at would be considered academically rigorous.
BTW, if you haven't been discovered as an "idol" by High School, it ain't gonna happen.
Ewan Huzarmy
"the dance class is extremely severe and involves heavy chastising of students who don’t go all out in while dancing in skimpy outfits."
"The establishment of the department was kicked off by Aya Sugimoto, a well-known talent, especially for her work with Sola Aoi."
Soooo.... in other words it's a course to pick the cream of the crop and ready them for the casting couch, to provide the Av world with more fresh faces.
yasukuni
"The post-secondary education business has entered dire straits in Japan. With the ever declining birth rate, schools across the nation are struggling to keep enrollments up."
Yep. Unless they get older people to study, I don't know who's going to fill up all the seats in all the buildings. There must be a lot of academic staff wondering about their futures.
herefornow
LOL. A college degree to become a "talent". Japanese society really has become completely superficial.
lostrune2
Ha! There are already bazillion games about this!
tmarie
And people here wonder why the number of international students is dropping. Until Japan gets serious about university, why would foreigners waste their time coming here to study.
It's a shame because a media promotion could be interesting - speech work, communication skills but this is just a mockery.
Thunderbird2
Aya Sugimoto is a strange one... she sees herself as a serious actress, then makes that Flower and Snake film where she basically gets her kit off and gets abused for much of the film... so I'm told heh heh. Sorry, but she's a loon... great looking, but a loon ^_^
sensei258
Aren't there enough "idols" already? I thought the only requirement was to have large breasts
mitoguitarman
"heavy chastising of students who don’t go all out in while dancing in skimpy outfits."
Hmmm. Hentai dream?
hachikoreloaded
Just sent in my resume for the "Dean of Student Body" position. Salary to be donated to charity.
cleo
It's a junior college, not a university. It has an overall academic percentile of 42, meaning it accepts students who are way below average. It's training girls to be secretaries, home helpers and flower arrangers, not Nobel Prize winners. No Japanese student with serious academic aspirations would choose to go there, and using it as an example of Why International Students Don't Come To Japan says more about your lack of understanding of Japanese tertiary education than it does about real Japanese universities that are interested in attracting overseas students.
As the number of prospective students falls with the falling birth rate, more of the lower-level colleges are going to go for this kind of gimmick to put bums on lecture hall seats. They're businesses, not hallowed seats of learning.
(For those who don't understand the 'academic percentile' (hensachi), average is 50, and the higher your hensachi the better your academic grades. Todai has a hensachi of around 75 (differs slightly according to department), Kyoto around 71, Waseda around 67 and Osaka around 65.
Waxman
Gimme a break, college for politics, now college for idol, whats next? College for porn movies?! I'm working for that department....lol
DP812
facepalm
I don't care if you call this course "media promotion," it is not media promotion.