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Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > JAPAMESE GOVERNMENT POLICIES IN EDUCATION,SCIENCE AND CULTURE 1990 > PART1 Chapter2 5 2

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PART 1 Issues and Perspectives ofHigher Education
Chapter 2 Current Status of Higher Education and Issues Involved
5 The Current State of Private Institutions and Government Assistance to These Institutions
2 Improvement and Expansion of Private Universities and Junior Colleges



(1) Trends in new institutions. new faculties and new departments

In recent years, many private institutions, faculties and departments have been created, in the context of an increase in the population aged 18, an increase in the proportion of upper secondary school students applying to institutions of higher education, and a growing number of local governments inviting institutions of higher education to move to their own localities, as part of their policies for community development. (See Table 1 -2-32.)

Table 1 -2-32 New Private Institutions, Faculties and Departments since 1986

In response to such social changes as internationalization and the spread of information technology, many of the new faculties and departments are in the fields of international relations and information science. In addition, there are a growing number of interdisciplinary faculties concerned with studies covering a wide range of areas which have been dealt with in two or more traditional faculties separately. Such new faculties include: faculties of policy management; integrated arts and social sciences; and medical technology. There are also new universities offering post-graduate courses which are active in admitting working adults and foreign students and are carrying out high-level interdisciplinary educational and research activities.

Meanwhile, junior colleges are expected to develop diverse patterns of reorganization different from universities. In recent years there have been created a variety of new departments in keeping abreast of the maturing of our society together with its internationalization and information-intensiveness. They include: departments of "international liberal education"; "intercultural studies"; and "information and communications." There are also an increasing number of departments of management information and departments of nursing.

There have been many new private universities and junior colleges founded on the basis of Joint cooperation by local governments and school corporations. Local governments have been cooperating with school corporations by means of granting or lending public land and subsidizing expenditures for founding a private institution. Apart from such financial cooperation, there are some local governments which provide school corporations with the help of knowledgeable persons who assist these corporations in the administration and management of the institution to be founded.

(2) New attempts by private universities and junior colleges

The population aged 18 will reach a peak in 1992 and then will rapidly decrease year by year. In these circumstances each private university is now confronted with an important issue of how to cope flexibly and properly with the demands of young people which are being diversified and heightened. There are an increasing number of private universities and junior colleges which have reorganized or transformed some of the traditional faculties and departments into new ones relevant to the changing times and which have renamed themselves or renamed some of their faculties and departments. These changes have taken place with the aim of making each institution more attractive to students.

With a view to making each university more open to the community to cope with the increasing demands of community people for lifelong learning, many private universities and junior colleges have become very active in admitting working adults as students and in organizing extension courses. In 1990 some new kinds of graduate schools were created. Some of them are open exclusively in the evening for the convenience of employed citizens and some others have set forth flexible time schedules for student attendance at classes (to enable some students to attend classes in the evening).

Further, along with the recent progress of internationalization of Japan's economy and society, there are an increasing number of school corporations which have set up, or plan to set up, educational institutions in foreign countries. At the higher education level, some corporations have set up, or plan to set up, educational facilities overseas with the aim of providing enriched instruction in foreign Languages or other subjects for students enrolled in Japanese institutions of higher education maintained by each corporation. If these new attempts are to be effective, sufficient studies should be conducted and appropriate measures should betaken with regard to the administration and management aspects, as well as the academic aspects, of these attempts.


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