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Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > JAPAMESE GOVERNMENT POLICIES IN EDUCATION,SCIENCE AND CULTURE 1990 > PART1 Chapter2 2 3

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PART 1 Issues and Perspectives ofHigher Education
Chapter 2 Current Status of Higher Education and Issues Involved
2 Current Status and Issues of Expanded Higher Education, and Its Improvement and Enhancement
3 Junior Colleges



(1) The role and current status of junior colleges

Junior colleges constitute a large part of the whole educational system, with 470,000 students, 240,000 entrants and 20,000 teachers. Ninety percent of the total enrollment in junior colleges are female. The proportion of the female age group advancing to junior colleges increased from 6.7% in 1965 to 22.2% in 1990. This percentage for 1990 is 7 points higher than the proportion of the female age group going on to universities (15.2%) in the same year. It can be stated that junior colleges have greatly contributed to women's access to higher education.

In 1950 when the junior college system was initiated as a tentative system, there were 149 colleges (17 local public and 132 private ones). Since then the number of junior colleges constantly increased, and in 1964 when the junior college system became a permanent one there were 339 colleges (29 national, 40 local public and 270 private ones). In 1990 the number of these colleges reached 593. (See Chart 1-2-11.)

Chart 1-2-11 Trends in the Number of Junior Colleges

The number of students enrolled in junior colleges (regular courses) increased from 14.000 in 1950 to 145.000 in 1965 and to 350.000 in 1975. Due to the national policy of limiting the qualitative expansion of higher education for a decade beginning in the second half of the 1970's, the rate of increase in enrollment in junior colleges remained very low throughout the decade. The total enrollment of junior colleges was 366.000 in 1985. The number of students in junior colleges began to increase again to a great extent due to an increase in the population aged 18 after1986. In 1990 it reached 473.000. (See Chart 1-2-12.)

Chart 1-2-12 Trends in Enrollments in Junior Colleges

At present there is a great variety of junior colleges in terms of school size, fields of study, etc. The current status of these colleges (as of 1 May 1990) is summarized below;

1) Of all junior colleges, 41 (or 7%) are national institutions, 54 (or 9%) local public ones, and 498 (or 84%) private ones. Private institutions represent a majority. Of all students in junior colleges. 18,000 (or 4%) are enrolled in national institutions, 22,COO (or 5%) in local public ones, and 433,000 (or 91%) in private ones. Students enrolled in private institutions account for a majority as well.

2) Of all students enrolled in junior colleges, 40,000 (or 9%) are men, and 433,000 (or 91%) are women. Female students represent a majority. The proportion of the female age group advancing to junior college was 22% in 1990, and the total number of women who applied in 1990 to junior colleges accounted for 27% of all female students enrolled in the third year of upper secondary school. In 1990 the percentage of the female age group going on to junior colleges was 7 points higher than the proportion of the female age group going on to universities (15%). However, the proportion of women advancing to universities has been increasing at a higher rate than for the proportion of women advancing to junior colleges. The percentage of the female age group advancing to junior colleges increased by 1.3 during the past five years (from 2O.9% in 1986 to 22.2% in 1990) while the percentage of the female age group going on to universities increased by 2.7 during the same five years (from 12.5% in 1986 to 15.2% in 1990)

3) The number of foreign students enrolled in junior colleges was 874 as of l May 1989. These students account for only O.2% of the total number of students in junior colleges.

4) Of all entrants to junior colleges in 1990, 50% were admitted to courses in the fields of home economics and humanities, and 30% to courses in the fields of education and social science. (See Chart 1-2-13.)

Chart 1-2-13 Percentage Distribution of Entrants to Junior Colleges by Major Fields of Study (1990)

5) Of all junior college entrants in 1990, 59% entered institutions located in the prefecture where they live. The corresponding proportion for entrants to undergraduate courses was 36%. These statistics indicate that junior colleges are more community based than universities. (See Table 1-2-17.)

Table 1-2-17 Mobility of Graduates from Universities and Junior Colleges. 1990

6) Regarding the size of institutions, the average number of students per institution is about 800 for junior colleges, which is much smaller than 4,000 for universities.


(2) Tasks for junior colleges
1) Coping with social needs

It can be said that emphasis in junior college education has been placed on education in the liberal arts. Due to recent changes in society, including the dissemination of information media and the progress of internationalization. The need has been growing for professional education in junior colleges. It is necessary for individual junior colleges to meet this need properly in the future.

Some junior colleges have already set up new courses related to information science and technology, medical treatment. secretary training, etc. Some have transformed home economics courses into living science courses. It is anticipated that junior colleges will be required to introduce more changes of this kind.

2) Coping with the diversification of higher education

As the average level of the educational background of people has become higher and higher, the average duration of schooling for women has also been longer. There has been an increasing number of women who wish to enter four-year university courses. This trend is expected to continue in the future. In these circumstances, the needs of junior college students for their own learning in junior colleges and for their own future prospects have tended to be diversified. For example, there are an increasing number of junior college students who wish to continue their own studies in respective specialized fields more profoundly after graduation from junior college. With this background, there is an increasing need for considering relevant measures for securing cooperation between junior colleges and other types of institutions of higher education. These measures may include making the transfer of junior college students to university courses easier.


3) Increased role of junior colleges in lifelong learning

There are an increasing number of junior colleges which offer extension courses (in 1988, 874 extension courses were provided by 267 junior colleges for 87,000 people) and which reserve a certain number of places for working adults in selecting entrants (81 junior colleges reserved such places in 1988). In this way the role of junior colleges as key institutions for lifelong learning in the community has been increasing.

Therefore, in the future it will be necessary for junior colleges to promote their role in this aspect and to introduce relevant innovations in the modes of student learning and in the curriculum with a view to making them more diverse and more flexible.


(3) Improvement and expansion of junior colleges

To meet the tasks mentioned in the preceding section, various measures have been taken for improving and expanding junior colleges, as follows:

1)Most of the national junior colleges are attached to national universities. A half of them are for medical technician training. a fourth for law and commerce and the other fourth for engineering.

Of these national junior colleges, those in the fields of law, commerce and engineering are evening colleges. With a view to improving and enriching their educational programs and mechanisms, these colleges are now under the process of transformation into four-year evening courses attached to the related undergraduate faculties of the respective universities. With the aim of such a transformation, new evening courses were set up in the University of Electro-Communications in 1987, in Kyoto Institute of Technology in 1988, in Gunma University in 1989, and in Ibaraki University and Yamaguchi University in 1990, respectively.

In the field of medical technology, in order to cope with the recent progress of medical research and treatment, 22 additional junior colleges in this field have been set up within national universities through the reorganization and transformation of special training schools or other university units.

Further in response to growing social demands, a few national junior colleges independent of any national universities have been created. In 1983 a Takaoka National College was set up as a distinctive junior college intended to make itself widely open to the community and to meet the diverse demands of the community. The college began to admit first-year students in 1986. The departments in the college are as shown in Table 1 -2-18.

Table 1-2-18 Departments in Takaoka National College

In 1987 a Tsukuba College of Technology was created. The college is a national junior college admitting students with hearing or visual difficulties with the aim of giving them an opportunity for education and research related to vocational techniques, developing them into competent workers with both a broad general culture and specialized techniques. and thus facilitating their participation in society. In 1990 the college began to admit students to its courses for students with hearing difficulties. It plans to begin in 1991 to admit students to its courses for students with sight difficulties. The departments in the college are as shown in Table 1-2-19.

Table 1-2-19 Departments in Tsukuba College of Technology

2)Local public junior colleges have been carrying out such educational and research activities as are adapted to the social demands of the community. In recent years they have been expected to conduct distinctive and diverse educational activities of a high standard through more collaboration with the community and through more openness to the community.

To meet this expectation, many local public junior colleges have been making their educational mechanisms more adapted to the demands of the community by, for example, creating departments for the training of medical technicians.

3)Private junior colleges have made great contributions to the quantitative expansion of higher education in Japan. In particular, every year since 1986 when the population aged 18 began to increase rapidly. they have set up a substantial number of additional departments and increased the number of student places to a great extent.

During the five years from 1986 to 1990, 49 junior colleges were set up and 154 departments were created including those in these new colleges. As a result the total number of places for entrants to junior colleges increased by 38,000 during the five years. A noTable Increase was witnessed in departments aimed at the development of students' vocational competencies. There was a dramatic increase in departments in the areas of management information and other information sciences, medical technician training and secretary training. In addition, along with the progress of internationalization in the various sectors of society, a substantial number of new departments of English language and other related areas have also been created. (See Table 1-2-20.)

Table 1 - 2 -20 Number of New Departments Aimed at the Development of Vocational Competencies (At Private Junior Colleges)

In the light of these circumstances, with a view to allowing junior colleges to reorganize and transform existing departments more easily, the Ministry of Education. Science and Culture has taken relevant measures to simplify procedures for approving the creation of a new department based on thc5 transformation of an existing department. For example, it has shortened the duration of screening for proposals for new departments to one year (from the usual period of two years)unless the creation of a new department would lead to an increase in the total number of places for the junior college.


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