No such "ministerial decree" that closes social sciences and humanities programs in Japan
As
a former junior official in the Japanese higher education bureau, I
have been deeply disappointed to learn a misled and distorted image
circulating all over the world. I am talking about all the articles
about the future of Japanese social sciences and humanities: "Japan
rethinks higher education in skills push" (The Wall Street Journal),
"Social sciences and humanities faculties to close in Japan after
ministerial decree" (Times Higher Education), etc. I am writing this
note because I have been asked about the issue by several people around
me but, lamentably, I couldn’t find any English sources that rectify
this misunderstanding.
To be clear, there is no such fact
that the Japanese education ministry plays down social sciences and
humanities for the sake of putting a higher priority on vocational
training. The ministry has already been clear about the importance of
these areas. Unlike the conventional belief, the ratio of our grants
in-aid for scientific research spent on social sciences and humanities
has been growing in the last decade. There have been several projects in
place that promote researches in these areas as well.
Why
such misreporting, then? The havoc was caused by a misled
interpretation of a 10-page-long guideline sent administratively to 86
national universities in June this year. Private universities (which
count around 600) are, of course, not the recipients of the guideline.
The
guideline bundles many pieces of general advice to national
universities, encouraging their organizational reforms. It clarifies
that, taking into account the constitutionally-stipulated principle of
academic autonomy, each university has to take an initiative in
determining the individual content of reform. The guideline, therefore,
does not apply in a uniform manner across all 86 national universities.
Merely
one sentence of the long guideline may be accused of the
misunderstanding: “With regard to the programs of teacher training, and
humanities and social sciences in particular, it is encouraged to
stipulate a reform plan, taking into consideration the reduction of
18-year-old population, human resource demands, expected level of
education and research, the roles of national universities and etc., and
dismantle and restructure organisations based on social needs”. Some
may wonder why the ministry used the word “dismantle”. Well, this word
is particularly reserved for irregular programs in teachers college,
collectively called “shinkatei” whose purpose is not necessarily teacher
training. Many of the teachers colleges in national universities
created “shinkatei” and transferred a part of their student capacity to
it largely because of the relative abundance of teachers in the late
1980s. Now that some regions may suffer from teacher shortage, the
ministry intends to place these teachers colleges back on track so that
they concentrate on teacher training.
* This note is based on my personal view and does not represent the official view of Japan’s education ministry.
*
Mr. Kan Suzuki, Special Advisor to Japan’s education minister, writes
on this issue in depth in Japanese. I owe the making of this note a
great deal to his article. Japanese readers are encouraged to refer to
Mr. Suzuki’s article: http://diamond.jp/articles/-/76705
* Below are some of the articles reporting this issue.
Times Higher Education: https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/social-sciences-and-humanities-faculties-close-japan-after-ministerial-decree
The Wall Street Journal:http://www.wsj.com/articles/japan-rethinks-higher-education-in-skills-push-1438571119
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário