April 16, 2010

1．On April 16, the first Japan-China-Korea Committee for Promoting Exchange and Cooperation among Universities was held in Tokyo attended by committee members from three countries (see Annex). In the Second Trilateral Summit (Beijing, October 10, 2009), Prime Minister Hatoyama had proposed to hold an intergovernmental expert meeting in order to discuss quality-assured exchanges. This committee meeting was held in order to realize his proposal.

2．Mr. Kan Suzuki, Senior Vice-Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan, sent his sympathy to China, in response to the earthquake disaster that struck Qinghai Province in April 14. He expressed his expectation for fruitful outcome through discussion in the committee, as it is necessary to provide quality assurance framework for international competition and cooperation, and to improve quality-assured exchanges.
This was followed by addresses from three co-chairpersons. Prof. Wu from China said integration process is going on in many fields including education in these three countries, and expressed his willingness to draw plans together for exchange among universities in the future. Prof. Seong from Korea said education is the source of development for human-being, and that today is the starting point for a new age of exchange and cooperation among three countries.
Prof. Anzai from Japan told this is the first time for the government sector there has been no project like this in the government for pursuing exchange with quality assurance, and expressed his expectation that this project will grow involving other Asian countries.
After these remarks, other committee members gave comments expecting further promotion of exchanges and cooperation, as well as enhanced practical procedures for exchange.

3．Following the discussion, agreements were made among the committee members as described below.

(1) Basic summary

 Based on the agreement at the Second Trilateral Summit, developing exchange among universities with quality assurance in Japan, China and Korea is of great importance in implementing human resources development on a scale of the whole East Asian region as the economic activities in this region are becoming more and more interrelated.

(2) Title of the project

 Through this project, it is expected that universities in Japan, China and Korea will become places where students and professors from diverse cultural and regional backgrounds will be able to come together, and the merits of each university will be realized. Considering the aforementioned, the title of the project has been determined as follows:

 Title in English: “CAMPUS Asia”
  (Collective Action for the Mobility Program of University Students)
 Title in Japanese:「キャンパス・アジア」
 Titles in Chinese and Korean: (described in the respective languages)

(3) Procedures

 This committee meeting will be held in rotation in the three countries in order to steadily realize the project. The second meeting will be held in China in autumn 2010, and the third one will be held in Korea within the first quarter of the year 2011 at the latest, depending on the development of discussion in the working group (to be explained below). The issues to be considered immediately are as follows:

- Mutual understanding on an exchange programs and quality assurance
- Elaborating the guidelines for exchange programs including credit transfers and grading policies.
- Implementing a pilot program and identifying necessary support
- Mutual understanding for university evaluation, publishing a common glossary of quality assurance, information-sharing on university evaluation, visiting each other to find out about evaluation activities.

(4) Working groups

 In addition to holding this meeting, a Working Group on the Exchange Program and a Working Group on Quality Assurance will be organized. The members of these WGs will be decided by the government, and for the Working Group on Quality Assurance, the representative in charge of the higher education policy of each of the respective governments and the Quality Assurance Agency Committee of Japan, China and Korea (established in March 2010) may possibly be members.

4．As closing remarks, Mr. Suzuki, Senior Vice-Minister, expressed appreciation to all of the committee members for their devoted contribution to the lengthy discussions, and stressed the importance of the activities by three counties for human resources development for all of the East Asian region and hoped for continuous cooperation from each of the members, as well as from the governments of China and Korea.

Annex

Japan:

China:

Korea:

※ Co-chairpersons

(Total 17 members)