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Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > JAPAMESE GOVERNMENT POLICIES IN EDUCATION,SCIENCE AND CULTURE 1990 > PART1 Chapter2 2 4

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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
4 Colleges of Technology



(l) Role and current status of colleges of technology

Colleges of technology aim at providing a five-year education, in which emphasis is placed on experiments, practical skill training and other practical work based on a theoretical basis in respective specialized disciplines. Colleges of technology have made it possible for students to acquire high-level professional competencies through relatively short-term higher education courses in which instruction is given on a small-group basis with rich curricula. As a result, these colleges have obtained a high evaluation from the world of industry. The demand from industrial firms for graduates from these colleges is very high. In 1989 the number of job offers was as many as 19 times the total number of graduates. (See Chart 1-2-14.)

Chart 1-2-14 Trends in the Ratio of the Number of Job Offers to the Number of Graduates from Colleges of Technology

The system of college of technology was inaugurated in 1962. During several subsequent years, colleges of technology specializing in engineering increased rapidly. followed by the creation of colleges specializing in marine science and in radio technology.

In 1976, two universities of technology and science were set up in Nagaoka and Toyohashi, respectively. These universities were designed to admit primarily graduates from colleges of technology. The creation of these universities provided graduates from these colleges with a much greater opportunity for advancing to a master's degree course.

In recent years, along with the spread of information technology and other technical changes, as well as with changes in the industrial structure, many departments in electronics, information technology and other new areas at colleges of technology have been created and reorganized, based on definite plans.

The current status of colleges of technology is summarized as follows:

1)The scale of colleges of technology is relatively small. The total number of students enrolled in these colleges is about 10,000 per grade. Enrollment in the first' year of colleges of technology accounts for only 0.6% of the total enrollment in the 10th grade in all institutions of formal education, and enrollment in the fourth year accounts for only 1.O% of the total enrollment in the 13th grade in all institutions of formal education. (See Table 1 -2-21.)

Table 1-2-21 Number and Proportion of Students Enrolled in Colleges of Technology, 1989

2)Of the 62 colleges of technology. 54 are national institutions, 4 local public ones and 4 private ones. The majority of all colleges are national colleges. (See Table 1-2-22.)

Table 1-2-22 Numbers of Institutions. Departments, Entrant Places, Students and Teachers in Colleges of Technology, 1990

3)Most students are enrolled in engineering courses. A relatively large number of students are enrolled in electricity and electronics courses (31%) and in mechanical engineering courses (25%). In recent years students enrolled in information technology courses have been rapidly increasing. (The proportion of students enrolled in these courses increased from 6% in 1986 to 14% in 1990.) (See Chart 1-2-15.)

Chart 1-2-15 Number of Entrants to Colleges of Technology, by Major Field of Study (1990)

4)Most students enrolled in these colleges are men. The number of female students, However, has been increasing. The proportion of entrants who are women exceeded 10% in 1989.

5)Most graduates are employed in large enterprises in manufacturing and other fields. The number of graduates going on to universities has been increasing (representing 11% of all graduates in March 1989).

6)The number of foreign students enrolled in colleges of technology was 198 as of 1 March 1989, representing only O.4% of the total enrollment. Foreign students, however, have been gradually increasing year by year.


(2) Tasks for colleges of technology
1) Coping with social needs

Colleges of technology are now required to create new courses or reorganize existing courses to keep up with the recent progress of science and technology and changes in the industrial structure. Meanwhile, due to the rapid progress of technological changes. emphasis in requirements for prospective engineers has been more and more placed on broad basic knowledge rather than on narrow specialized knowledge. Accordingly there is a growing call for redefining the educational objectives of the college of technology, and improving the curriculum and teaching methods therein to make them relevant to the redefined objectives. A review of the National Standards for the Establishment of Colleges of Technology is also required.

2) Coping with the diversification of higher education

As the average level of the educational background of the people has been improving, there are a growing number of students enrolled in colleges who wish to advance to university undergraduate departments and graduate schools. In this context, with a view to helping diversify higher education and securing more cooperation among different types of institutions of higher education there is a great necessity for considering how to facilitate students' successful transfer to universities and how to strengthen mutual cooperation between colleges of technology and other types of institutions of higher education.


3) Expansion of major fields of study to be covered by colleges of technology

At present, courses at colleges of technology are limited to those in the fields of engineering and mercantile marine science. In order to take more advantage of the effective educational activities of colleges of technology and in order to ensure the further energetic development of these colleges, it is required that the colleges expand the major fields of study to be covered, and increase the number of students transferring from upper secondary schools. (See Chart 1-2-16.)

Chart 1-2-16 Number of Students Transferring from Upper Secondary Schools to Colleges of Technology


4) Improvement of educational environment

Facilities and equipment in many colleges of technology are obsolete, and thus the educational environment in many colleges is deteriorating. The reconstruction and renovation of these obsolete facilities and equipment are urgently required.

5) Coping with internationalization

To keep up with the progress in internationalization in the various sectors of society, it is increasingly necessary that colleges of technology accept a greater number of foreign students and have more teachers participate in programs for technical cooperation with developing countries.


(3) Further development and improvement of colleges of technology

To keep up with the recent developments in advanced science and technology and the progress of the integration of the sciences, and to meet the string demands from the industry for graduates from colleges of technology, colleges of technology have actively undertaken the creation of new departments and the transformation of existing departments into those departments for which social demands are very high.

In order to contribute to the recruitment of information technologists whose supply is quite short of the demand, some national colleges of technology have setup departments of electronics control engineering, information technology and electronics information technology. In addition to these departments for information technologies, some colleges have set up new departments of biotechnology so as to contribute to the development of more technologists in this field.

Further, some national colleges of technology have reorganized: departments of mechanical engineering into departments concerned with mechatronics (i.e., mechanics-electronics); departments of metallurgical engineering into departments of materials engineering dealing with a wide range of materials; departments of industrial chemistry into departments of materials engineering mainly dealing with new materials and biotechnology.

Some other national colleges have introduced, in their departments of radio wave communication, instruction in optical communications technology and information communication technology, and changed the names of these departments to those relevant to the content of instruction.

Many local public and private colleges of technology have also endeavored to contribute to the development of manpower in those fields for which manpower demands are very strong, by means of transforming departments of electric engineering and of mechanical engineering into departments of electronics engineering and of information engineering. (See Table l-2-23.)

Table 1-2-23 New Departments Set Up in Colleges of Technology


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