4 Japanese universities to apply for ¥10 tril gov't fund

4 Japanese universities to apply for ¥10 tril gov't fund

Another government scheme to pour down more money.

achieve approximately 3 percent in business growth per annum.

Can they really achieve this?

The university’s have proven so inefficient and inept the tax payer has to pay that much money to try to bring up to international standards? How about addressing the core issues, how did it fall into this state to begin with?

“achieve approximately 3 percent in business growth per annum “

The academic standards of Japanese universities won’t become world-class unless the government stops seeing college education as investment in business that brings you quick returns.

Looking at how bad the level of the universities in Japan in the international rankings the money may not be enough for the purpose.

Low level of research, poor international cooperation, minimum patent holding, no real presence of foreign students, all these and others are areas to be improved, but the focus of the government? "business growth"

This seems heading in the wrong direction.

Japan just cannot face reality. You have to be part of the international community if you want to be as good as they are.

Although I don’t trust amukurai system, at least investing in education at home is better than giving away weapons overseas. I hope these universities genuinely try hard to improve their standards and give hope to the future generation.

Pretty much agree with the commenters that say if the unis want to be considered a part of and/or at the same level as international institutions, they should actually try to be part of the international scene. And of course no amount of money will fix that... Only real change in the educational system.

It would be much easier and cost efficient to just eliminate the faux universities, they know who they are.

They don’t act by logic. You first need more children and then educate them all at kindergartens and schools, and then a few of those much more children will bring those innovations. To put all the money at the emptied end of the chain won’t help, because it simply can’t.

Amakudari at its finest. Wonder which retired politician will end up inheriting a high-ranking position in these universities.

Four Japanese national universities plan to apply for a 10 trillion yen fund.

For clarification, that is 10,000,000,000,000 JPY. Equivalent, as of this writing, to $7,861,666,122.90 USD.

For comparison purposes, machine tool orders in all of Japan were 154,991,000,000 JPY last month. And all government spending (government public expenditures for goods and services) in Japan was 116,714,000,000,000 JPY during the first quarter of 2022.

It's only money.

The main problem the Japanese universities have is that as soon as a reseacher is on to something they are poached by a high performing university overseas where the employment conditions are much better in terms of income, prestige and work life balance. Until Japanese work culture changes then the brain drain will contine. This policy looks more like bureaucrats looking for soft landing post retirement in the Amakudari system*. *So nothing will change except the Japanese tax payer has ever more debt to pay on behalf of supporting the elites.

are we going to sponsor 4 universities by taxpayers money and still need pay for tuition there-Am I right?

how about to do other way-just prove real quality of your education at international field?without any sponsorship money?

I hope they start an underwater basket weaving program with the money. That degree has some serious potential.

The condition of a saturated higher education market.

...eliminate the faux universities, they know who they are.

Some of them have already outed themselves in the article.

I think it is money for lab equipment as I heard it is better in America.

i tell my students to go to Germany as there is an exchange with Bonn University.

No tuition to pay.

But still they waste money. Some professors with research and miss a few classes so they can travel overseas

during the term.

Salaries for full-timers at 700,000 per month or more, and part timers get 100,000 or less? What a joke.

I think it is money for lab equipment as I heard it is better in America.

Lab equipment can be bought anywhere it may be expensive but that is the same all around the world, the problem is that quality research requires motivated and prepared postgraduate students and staff, and the US simply have much better scholarships and salaries to attract people.

There is not much to gain if you are going to use the machines just to repeat what others have done, doing that will only let you publish in low impact factor journals and the research will be left there without being cited, in turn that means the university get a low score in research and impact on society.

This is really just a new pot of money that is out there to further a policy goal that the government has been pursuing (with previous pots of money) for quite a few years now.

Japan has too many smaller universities and colleges that are going to have to close in the near future due to the shrinking pool of 18 year olds on the one hand. On the other, it also has a few large, elite universities that can compete internationally (including the four which are applying for this one).

Whereas government policy in the old days was centred on propping up regional universities, now that is sort of seen as throwing good money after bad and instead they are focusing on just heavily investing in a small number of the latter type of university because they have way more potential.

As usual, the smaller universities can see they will be excluded from this so they are complaining about that. The bigger universities on the other hand are fine with it.

Salaries for full-timers at 700,000 per month or more, and part timers get 100,000 or less? What a joke.

Some part timers of my acquaintance are teaching as many as 26 koma per week. At that rate, they’re making nearly as much as full time professors. They tell me the only reason their koma load hasn’t put them into a coma, is because they’re in bed by 10 and have pared back marking, correcting, and preparation to the barest minimum. Needless to say, when quality takes a back seat to quantity, the result is predictable.

Those who have been here a while will remember the ¥15billion Global 30 Program, 2009-14. Abe's stated goal : 10 Japanese universities in the top 100. Result: Failure, same two, Todai and Kyodai, in 2014 as 2009.

Next we had the ¥7. 7billion Top Global University Initiative , 2015-23 Same goal, same result: Failure, rankings slipped.

Now the same wooly plan but hey, lets spend 1000 times more - 10 trillion yen! - this time.

What's killing Japanese universities is not lack of funding, its nepotism. The universities just hire back their own students, and worse, individual professors just hire back their own PhDs to fill the junior slots. Result: mediocracy.

Until this is stopped - say by a quota - these programs are just uselessly burning up money the gov't doesn't even have.

Unless the whole junior high school and the senior high school system is overhauled to encourage critical thinking and as long as Japanese universities remain mainly just a stepping stone to getting a job after getting a BA where most students are not even interested in the major they chose and where their club activities are often more important than many of their classes, and as long as they continue to cram 4 years of classes into 2-3 years so they can job hunt and continue to have the lowest % of students in the developed world going on to graduate studies (due in the main to the senpai/kohai culture in the workplace) Japan will NEVER be on par with international universities no matter how much money they receive.

The article said,”Four Japanese national universities plan to apply for a 10 trillion yen fund established by the government to bring institutions up to par with the world's top universities.”

I think this idea is very nice.

Because I think that the academic ability of Japanese university students is low worldwide.

Recently society is becoming globalized, and I think the day will come when we get a job and work together with overseas people and companies. However, as it is now, I think it is difficult to even have a smooth communication.

We should raise the level of education and study at the same level as in the world.

The printing press is in overdrive yet the drop in the yens value is blamed on foreign interest rates rising. Hmmmm