Internationalization of Higher Education: Global Trends and Japan's Challenges

Abstract

This paper discusses the meaning of the internationalization of higher education in Japan, based on a review of global trends in this area. Globalization has brought major changes to higher education, and in order to deal with them, the Japanese government has promoted internationalization as an important policy for higher education reform with a series of competitive funding programs. Universities in Japan, too, have made efforts to internationalize themselves. Despite the government's policy initiatives, the internationalization of Japanese higher education has not been understood as a high-priority issue at the institutional level, with many examples of superfi cial or partial add-ons of the international aspect, and has even been criticized as unable to contribute to transformative change at universities. Internationalization tends to be used as a means to prevail in the domestic competition between universities (in-ward-facing internationalization) and does not necessarily result in initiatives which lead to the improvement of learning in a globalized environment. All in all, the government's competitive funding projects for internationali-zation have indeed intensifi ed domestic competition among universities. However , it is not certain that the funds have increased the international competitiveness and compatibility of Japanese higher education as a whole. Globalization, which transfers people, goods and services, money, information and ideas rapidly across national borders, is having a major impact on higher education. Rapid economic development, centered on Asia, is accompanied by a rise in the global demand for post-secondary education, and in response to this, the massification and diversification of higher education are moving ahead, bringing about the marketization and commodifi cation of higher education together with increasing access. At the same time, the gap between the uni