Divs-poole

JAPANESE TERTIARY EDUCATION 

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specialized training for a state mission of “modernization” to a more general liberal 

arts approach in an age of “internationalization” (Atagi 1997) making it the second 

largest and one of the most diverse tertiary education systems in the world. 

 

The examination system, the phenomena of “credentialized society,” and 

hensachi grades (norm-referenced scoring system for secondary school leavers) 

label and rank institutions and their graduates in a hierarchical fashion. Within the 

university itself, the working characteristics and academic qualifications of the 

professoriate point to the autonomous nature of the profession and the surprising 

emphasis on administrative activities as the defining aspect of work. Although in 

the language of the kyōju themselves this administrative work is disparagingly 

referred to as zatsugyō (miscellaneous or idle work), administrative activities hold 

great import in the actual social world of the kyōju—their working lives are often 

defined by this type of work.  

The organization of daigaku and kyōju reveals a dichotomy of full-time (sen’in 

kyōin) and part-time (hijōkin kyōshi) academic staff, a heavy reliance on part-

timers for much of the teaching, and a certain liminal nature of part-time 

professors’ status within the daigaku community. The consensus-seeking nature of 

decision-making at committee and faculty meetings, and the conflict that often 

ensues at such events, can be explained to a certain degree by through examining 

the Japanese concepts of nemawashi (spadework), kaizen (incremental 

improvement), and hansei (self-criticism) and the ritualized language of the aisatsu 

genre. 

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CHAPTER 2 

REFORM OF JAPANESE HIGHER EDUCATION 

Around the world, institutions involved with tertiary education are being 

challenged to change. The “demands on HE outrun the capacity to respond” as 

societies in many of the OECD countries rush toward not merely mass, but 

universal higher education (Clark 1997a, p. 291). Of course Japan is not exempt 

from these pressures and, having one of the largest tertiary educational systems in 

the world, is more challenged by change than most and certainly a participant in 

the globalization phenomenon of HE (Shiozawa 2000). In fact, depending on how 

one defines “reform” (cf. Cummings 2003), it can be argued that the change 

sweeping tertiary education is, as one scholar has dubbed it, “The Third Great 

Reform of the Japanese Education System” (Hood 2003). 

GAIATSU: THE UNIVERSITY IN CRISIS 

In this section the challenges that face the Japanese HE system are examined, 

focusing on the work of Amano Ikuo, a leading researcher in the field. His writing 

on HE reform, some of which I have translated for publication (Amano & Poole 

2005), clearly explains the dilemma facing daigaku. 

As Tsuruta (2003) and others have pointed out, over the past few decades, 

higher education schooling in Japan has reached a state of massification and 

universal levels of enrollment. Recently the phenomenon of declining birthrate has 

presented a challenge for institutions of higher education because of the steady 

drop in enrollment numbers at many of the less elite institutions around the 

country. Though external competition, economic recession, political developments, 

and market changes are all factors driving the HE reform process, the demographic 

pressure is arguably the greatest impetus for change at Japanese universities. The 

population of 18-year-olds reached a peak of over 2 million in 1992 and has since 

dropped to 1.5 million in 2000 and an estimated 1.2 million in 2010—a decline of 

41 percent in 18 years (Doyon 2001, p. 445; Goodman 2001b, p. 16). This means 

that now in 2009, the places available at HEIs more or less equal the number of 

applicants. Consequently, of course, universities are seeking to expand the market. 

One way they are doing this is by offering more noncompetitive, community-

college type of extension courses and programs to serve the local working 

populaces for retraining and continuing education. Recruiting of foreign students, 

especially from other Asian countries, is another strategy that has heated up with 

the 2009 MEXT program (“Global 30”) to increase this number to 300,000, as is 

an expansion in postgraduate programs (Ishikawa 2009). Though the competition 

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CHAPTER 2 

to enter elite universities will continue to be fierce, lower-ranked institutions are 

already beginning to feel the crunch of survival of the fittest (Amano 2001). The 

numbers for 2005 indicate that nearly a third of Japan’s private four-year 

universities and well over a half of the private two-year colleges failed to reach 

their enrollment targets. Since tuition fees account for over two-thirds of a private 

institution’s income, their economic viability is clearly being threatened as 

universities are being forced to find new markets for students. One of Japan’s most 

vocal reformists and respected commentators, Amano Ikuo (1999), explains that 

although in the past HE has been predominately a stagnant seller’s market in Japan, 

demographics and other pressures are transforming this into a more diversified 

buyer’s market. 

Amano on University Reform 

Amano (1999) purports that the greatest challenge to universities is marketization. 

Since deregulation efforts in Japan started in the 1980s and 1990s, for the world of 

higher education as well, under the simultaneous control and protection of the 

government, “liberalization,” “diversity,” and “individualization” became the 

slogans of university reform. Amano points out that behind such catchwords—

“individualization”  (koseika), “diversification”  (tayōka), and “zest for living” 

(ikiru chikara)—is this central ideology of deregulation. This reform was designed 

to “get rid of controls or weaken [the Japanese Ministry of Education],” 

liberalization that, of course, the ministry initially opposed (Hood 2001b, p. 106). 

Included in this problem—university reform accelerated by the low position of 

Japanese higher education in the eyes of the world—was an assertion, voiced since 

the seventies, that in order to activate research into education as well as to measure 

the rise in standards, regulations must be relaxed and a principle of competition 

should be adopted for the allocation of resources. A crisis in the universities and a 

structural change in higher education was brought about not only by the 

development of a mass education symbolized by a tremendous increase in the 

number of university-bound students, but this sudden start of politicization was a 

result of Japanese society and the economy itself facing difficult times. Amano 

points out that the severity of the challenge facing universities bespeaks just how 

high the expectation is for these institutions. 

Amano feels that the educational research activities and administration modus 

operandi of universities are distinct from for-profit enterprises, and they cannot be 

expected to completely adopt competition and market principles. He also asserts 

that universities are not immune from marketization forces. As for the national 

universities, Amano suggests that these institutions have begun to be regarded as a 

sort of Orwellian Big Brother Japan. Journalists in Japan visiting the research 

facilities of national institutions dubbed them “a coffin of brains” (Arimoto 1997, 

p. 204). Trends toward adopting market and competition principles and the demand 

for the self-government of the university’s management bodies is a worldwide one, 

observes Amano. “It can be said that the ‘contemporary’ universities that were 

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