The Changing Structure of Japanese Higher Education: Globalization, Mobility, and Massification

Abstract

Over the past ten years, Japanese universities and colleges have experienced sweeping and sudden changes. Two phenomena have contributed much to these developments. First, globalization has encouraged Japanese universities to compete in and adapt to a newly internationalized knowledge-based society. In a knowledge-based society, the transfer of knowledge and human personnel is associated with mobility or internationalization. As a result, Japanese universities have felt obliged to tailor research as well as teaching and learning to a more global world. Second, Japan’s birth rate has declined rapidly over the past 18 years. In other words, Japanese universities have entered a period of universalization, in which almost 50 percent of college-aged students have access to higher education (Trow 1974). In Japan, such universalization is often referred to as “taishuka,” which roughly translates into “massification.” With 49.9 percent of recent high school graduates enrolling in higher education in 2003, Japan entered the massification phase (The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology [MEXT] 2004). At present, this means that almost every student who wishes to attend university is given admission. As an implicit result, students less prepared for university study, lacking basic knowledge, the appropriate study skills, and the necessary motivation, are entering higher education.