Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > FY2003 White Paper on Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology >Part1 Chapter1 Section3.2

Looking at the worldwide situation, the trend is towards a four-year course to acquire a bachelor's degree, and in Japan too, in principle, the required duration of study for a university undergraduate education is four years.

At the same time, for outstanding students, it is important to carry out education appropriate to their abilities and aptitudes, and enable them to develop further their outstanding talents.

For this reason, exceptional approval of early graduation for students who have obtained the number of credits necessary for graduation, with outstanding grades, in more than three but fewer than four years has been introduced. This system first came into effect for the students who entered university in April 2000, and is predicated on the assumption that the university carries out responsible class management, and that specific necessary conditions are met such as a strict assessment of academic performance.

It has been suggested that excessive importance has been placed on egalitarianism in education in Japan. In the future, it is important to further promote education that aims to respond to individual abilities and aptitudes, and develop those abilities.

Column 2 Advanced Science Program (Early University Entrance) At Chiba University, "Early University Entrance" has been implemented since FY1998, in order to develop science frontiers that deal with new issues. In the selection process of entrants for the program, efforts are made to discover students with the ability to think for themselves and who are capable of creative thinking, through written examinations in which the student is allowed to bring in textbooks, and long interviews. After entering the program, in addition to the usual curriculum, students participate in small-group seminars with only three or four students, undergo thorough English education, and study abroad for one month. The program aims to develop students with a sound grasp of the basics of a specialized field, and with a rich international sensibility. The students in the first and second group of the "Early University Entrance" program have all completed their studies, and all of the students in the third group are planning to go on to graduate school study. Two of the students have completed their undergraduate studies in three years and have achieved early entrance to US graduate schools. Based on these performances, a plan is under way to expand the "Early University Entrance" program, which was initially limited to physics, by starting an advanced engineering field (frontier technology course) related to physics in FY2003, and a human exploration course that scientifically studies human psychology in FY2004. Seminar

For these reasons, from April 2002, limits to the fields for early university entrance, which had previously been approved only for mathematics and physics, were abolished. Universities meeting specific necessary conditions can now allow university entrance students recognized as having especially outstanding qualities that have studied at an upper secondary school for two years or more (as of FY2003, it is being implemented at Chiba University and Meijo University). In the same spirit, students recognized as having obtained outstanding grades in their first three years at university can now enter graduate school without waiting for university graduation (as of FY2002, implemented at 37 universities).