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PART Issues and Perspectives ofHigher Education

Traditionally, the autonomy of the university and it's educational and research activities has been respected and guaranteed by society. This means that society observes that the improvement of the educational and research activities of a university and the upgrading of the level of these activities should be, and can be, achieved primarily by the awareness, creativity and endeavors of the university itself.

If universities are to respond to this expectation of society and to perform their own public responsibility, it is most important that universities themselves constantly monitor and evaluate their educational and research activities and fully devote their energy to the improvement and innovation of their own activities. Universities need to introduce a new system of monitoring and evaluation to facilitate their efforts in this respect.

These efforts will become more important when the national institutional frameworks such as the Standards for the Establishment of Universities become more general and broader to allow individual universities to carry out their educational and research activities in free and diverse ways on the basis of their own principles.

In devising a system of monitoring and evaluation, it should be recognized that monitoring and evaluation should be primarily self-monitoring and self-evaluationby the university itself. Priority should be given to ensuring that a system and practices of self-monitoring and self-evaluation take root. It will be important that, with this in view, each university consider specific items for self-monitoring and specific methods of evaluation regarding these items, and strive to improve the system of monitoring and evaluation, step by step.

The basic requirement in carrying out a self-evaluation process seems to be that, with a view to achieving its own educational aims and principles, each university should identify, on its own judgment, an appropriate check list of all the educational and research activities which are suited to the category of each institution (e.g.. multi-faculty institution, single-faculty institution, the major fields of study provided), monitor these activities in accordance with this list from diverse angles, and ascertain the present state of affairs precisely. It is to be desired that, after this self-monitoring process, each university should evaluate its own activities in terms of aspects to be improved, characteristics to be positively appraised, and proper directions to be pursued in the future.

It is important for each university to consider how to utilize the results of the self-monitoring and self-evaluation process in the improvement of its own educational and research activities and to implement this improvement successfully. It seems to be advisable that each university publishes the results of its own monitoring and evaluation as far as possible, with a view to meeting expectations of the public toward the university and to helping the public understand the efforts of the university.

In the United States accreditation associations organized by universities and colleges are in charge of verifying the results of the self-monitoring and self-examination by individual institutions and endorsing the objectivity of the results. It can be considered that the adoption of a similar process is advisable so as to help individual institutions carry out their self-evaluation more effectively.