Japanese Universities Go Global, but Slowly
October 08, 2012
AKITA, JAPAN — Takuya Niiyama, a sophomore at Akita International University,
dreams of becoming an international tourism operator promoting the
northern Japanese prefecture of Akita, leveraging his hard-earned
language skills and a network of international students he befriended on
campus.
Mr. Niiyama, who is from Akita, hopes that the university’s mandated one-year overseas exchange program will help him achieve his goal.
“I need to acquire solid English skills,” he said. “And I knew that an ordinary Japanese university would not prep me for that.”
As Japanese schools intensify efforts to globalize their campuses, Akita International University seems well on its way toward internationalization, with foreign exchange students arriving from more than 50 institutions from around the world.
Mineo Nakajima, AIU’s president, visited U.S. schools like the University of California, San Diego and The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, while planning his new institution.
A.I.U., founded in 2004, joins a handful of others in experimenting with these kinds of endeavors. The problem is that they are a glaring exception rather than a trend in Japan.
Some new schools outside the major cities are beating their bigger, older, slow-moving peers to the punch, with more international students and graduates who are likely to be multicultural and multilingual. They are also drawing the attention of corporate recruiters.
“Japan is still an intellectually closed shop,” said Mr. Nakajima of AIU, who was the former president of the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
At The University of Tokyo, Japan’s top university, also known as Todai, only 53 undergraduates took part in its exchange program in 2011, or 0.4 percent of the student body of 14,100.
Keio University, another leading name in Tokyo with an undergraduate enrollment of 29,000, sent only 133 students overseas in 2010, or 0.45 percent of the total student body.
Only eight universities across Japan, mostly private, sent more than 100 students abroad to obtain 16 credits or more in 2009, according to a university handbook published by The Asahi Shimbun. (Japan has more than 700 colleges and universities.)
Reasons cited include low enthusiasm among students for study abroad, as well as a lack of drive and commitment on the part of universities to internationalize their programs.
Masako Egawa, a University of Tokyo spokeswoman, acknowledged that it had lagged behind both its international counterparts and its domestic peers.
“It is true, we have not had as extensive a system for international exchange as private universities do,” she said in an interview.
“We have been doing well at the graduate divisions, however, with 18 percent of the students coming from overseas.”
Still, most large universities, including Todai, see the urgency of increasing overseas exchanges. This is particularly true as Japanese corporations need more graduates capable of helping them globalize, and as the universities themselves look to draw more students as the Japanese population ages.
“We would like to see Japanese universities become more open internationally,” said Toshimitsu Iwanami, senior executive vice president of NEC Corp., a major information technology services provider. “And when that occurs, there may be a greater number of Japanese youth with globally ready talent.”
Mr. Iwanami heads a committee on education at Keidanren, Japan’s leading federation of large corporations, which has voiced concerns about a lack of international higher education.
He added that Japanese employers were hoping that universities would introduce more bilingual, foreign graduates to the labor market.
The vast majority of Japan’s leading universities are in big cities like Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. They admit thousands of students annually and have a century of history behind them, perpetuating the notion that institutions must be large, entrenched and urban to thrive.
But Akita International University, which has struck a chord with both students and corporate recruiters, has surprised the establishment. Located in a part of Akita city surrounded by woods, it was created in 2004 financed largely by Akita Prefecture with a mission to produce internationally minded thinkers.
Half of the faculty are non-Japanese and all classes are taught in English. Today, the university ranks among the nation’s top schools, like Osaka University and the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, in competitiveness of admissions. Last year, A.I.U. accepted only one out of 21 applicants in the segment of admissions that requires a competitive examination.
A relatively small university with total enrollment of 834, A.I.U. has become a magnet for corporate recruiters.
“Leading Japanese firms as well as foreign firms such as Morgan Stanley have been conducting recruitment by actually paying a visit to Akita,” said Hiroshi Kobayashi, editor of a university administration magazine. “That is very rare for a school that is located in a remote area.” He said regional universities normally had to woo corporate visitors by paying for their travel.
At A.I.U., 114 international students study there as part of the exchanges that it has with 130 overseas universities.
Mr. Nakajima, the university president, said designing a system that was fully compatible with overseas schools was key. There are bigger problems, like a paucity of English-language courses, and smaller ones, like a course numbering system that is incompatible with what is used internationally.
Another institution with a successful international program is Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific University, which was founded in 2000 in Ooita Prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu.
Its founding president, Kazuichi Sakamoto, said he felt the urge to create a new international university.
“We felt the approach of doing something a little here and there to fix the system won’t do,” he said.
So, he and colleagues from Ritsumeikan University, in Kyoto, founded a new school in Ooita, with the help of a governor who wished to use the project to help revitalize the region.
“The buzz word we worked on was internationalization ‘from within’ to create a campus here that would be made up of students from around the world,” Mr. Sakamoto said.
Today, Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific University has the highest number, as well as the highest ratio, of foreign students working toward a degree in Japan: 2,692 from 81 countries who represent 43 percent of the total body. It achieved a 95 percent job placement rate in 2011 and, like Akita International University, is frequently visited by recruiters from leading companies.
A survey published by The Nikkei Shimbun this month asked human resources heads at major Japanese companies which universities they were “paying most attention” to, in terms of nurturing talent. The first three spots went to Akita, the University of Tokyo and Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific.
Akita and Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific employed two different tacks for internationalization. But their success came from one common link: They started universities from scratch.
Japanese universities, experts say, are run in a collegial manner. Top-down overhauls are invariably hobbled by faculty who prefer the status quo.
“Changing an existing university is very difficult. Thus you might as well start a new one,” Mr. Nakajima said. “When I was president at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, I tried to redesign the English-language program to make it more communication oriented.”
The plan was foiled when he was met with resistance from the English faculty.
The answer may not be in tinkering with international programs, but a deeper change in the mind-sets of the faculty and the administrators, said Kirk R. Patterson, former dean at theJapan campus of Temple University, in Philadelphia.
“There is a general lack of meaningful contribution by Japanese scholars to the international dialogue in their disciplines,” he said, citing low levels of participation in conferences and publication in academic journals, particularly in the social sciences. “If professors can’t be participants in the international dialogue, how can universities themselves become internationalized? Just talking about a flow of a few dozen students back and forth will not make universities international. The flow will come if the institutions themselves become more international.”
Mr. Niiyama, who is from Akita, hopes that the university’s mandated one-year overseas exchange program will help him achieve his goal.
As Japanese schools intensify efforts to globalize their campuses, Akita International University seems well on its way toward internationalization, with foreign exchange students arriving from more than 50 institutions from around the world.
Mineo Nakajima, AIU’s president, visited U.S. schools like the University of California, San Diego and The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, while planning his new institution.
A.I.U., founded in 2004, joins a handful of others in experimenting with these kinds of endeavors. The problem is that they are a glaring exception rather than a trend in Japan.
Some new schools outside the major cities are beating their bigger, older, slow-moving peers to the punch, with more international students and graduates who are likely to be multicultural and multilingual. They are also drawing the attention of corporate recruiters.
“Japan is still an intellectually closed shop,” said Mr. Nakajima of AIU, who was the former president of the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
At The University of Tokyo, Japan’s top university, also known as Todai, only 53 undergraduates took part in its exchange program in 2011, or 0.4 percent of the student body of 14,100.
Keio University, another leading name in Tokyo with an undergraduate enrollment of 29,000, sent only 133 students overseas in 2010, or 0.45 percent of the total student body.
Only eight universities across Japan, mostly private, sent more than 100 students abroad to obtain 16 credits or more in 2009, according to a university handbook published by The Asahi Shimbun. (Japan has more than 700 colleges and universities.)
Reasons cited include low enthusiasm among students for study abroad, as well as a lack of drive and commitment on the part of universities to internationalize their programs.
Masako Egawa, a University of Tokyo spokeswoman, acknowledged that it had lagged behind both its international counterparts and its domestic peers.
“It is true, we have not had as extensive a system for international exchange as private universities do,” she said in an interview.
“We have been doing well at the graduate divisions, however, with 18 percent of the students coming from overseas.”
Still, most large universities, including Todai, see the urgency of increasing overseas exchanges. This is particularly true as Japanese corporations need more graduates capable of helping them globalize, and as the universities themselves look to draw more students as the Japanese population ages.
“We would like to see Japanese universities become more open internationally,” said Toshimitsu Iwanami, senior executive vice president of NEC Corp., a major information technology services provider. “And when that occurs, there may be a greater number of Japanese youth with globally ready talent.”
Mr. Iwanami heads a committee on education at Keidanren, Japan’s leading federation of large corporations, which has voiced concerns about a lack of international higher education.
He added that Japanese employers were hoping that universities would introduce more bilingual, foreign graduates to the labor market.
The vast majority of Japan’s leading universities are in big cities like Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. They admit thousands of students annually and have a century of history behind them, perpetuating the notion that institutions must be large, entrenched and urban to thrive.
But Akita International University, which has struck a chord with both students and corporate recruiters, has surprised the establishment. Located in a part of Akita city surrounded by woods, it was created in 2004 financed largely by Akita Prefecture with a mission to produce internationally minded thinkers.
Half of the faculty are non-Japanese and all classes are taught in English. Today, the university ranks among the nation’s top schools, like Osaka University and the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, in competitiveness of admissions. Last year, A.I.U. accepted only one out of 21 applicants in the segment of admissions that requires a competitive examination.
A relatively small university with total enrollment of 834, A.I.U. has become a magnet for corporate recruiters.
“Leading Japanese firms as well as foreign firms such as Morgan Stanley have been conducting recruitment by actually paying a visit to Akita,” said Hiroshi Kobayashi, editor of a university administration magazine. “That is very rare for a school that is located in a remote area.” He said regional universities normally had to woo corporate visitors by paying for their travel.
At A.I.U., 114 international students study there as part of the exchanges that it has with 130 overseas universities.
Mr. Nakajima, the university president, said designing a system that was fully compatible with overseas schools was key. There are bigger problems, like a paucity of English-language courses, and smaller ones, like a course numbering system that is incompatible with what is used internationally.
Another institution with a successful international program is Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific University, which was founded in 2000 in Ooita Prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu.
Its founding president, Kazuichi Sakamoto, said he felt the urge to create a new international university.
“We felt the approach of doing something a little here and there to fix the system won’t do,” he said.
So, he and colleagues from Ritsumeikan University, in Kyoto, founded a new school in Ooita, with the help of a governor who wished to use the project to help revitalize the region.
“The buzz word we worked on was internationalization ‘from within’ to create a campus here that would be made up of students from around the world,” Mr. Sakamoto said.
Today, Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific University has the highest number, as well as the highest ratio, of foreign students working toward a degree in Japan: 2,692 from 81 countries who represent 43 percent of the total body. It achieved a 95 percent job placement rate in 2011 and, like Akita International University, is frequently visited by recruiters from leading companies.
A survey published by The Nikkei Shimbun this month asked human resources heads at major Japanese companies which universities they were “paying most attention” to, in terms of nurturing talent. The first three spots went to Akita, the University of Tokyo and Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific.
Akita and Ritsumeikan Asia-Pacific employed two different tacks for internationalization. But their success came from one common link: They started universities from scratch.
Japanese universities, experts say, are run in a collegial manner. Top-down overhauls are invariably hobbled by faculty who prefer the status quo.
“Changing an existing university is very difficult. Thus you might as well start a new one,” Mr. Nakajima said. “When I was president at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, I tried to redesign the English-language program to make it more communication oriented.”
The plan was foiled when he was met with resistance from the English faculty.
The answer may not be in tinkering with international programs, but a deeper change in the mind-sets of the faculty and the administrators, said Kirk R. Patterson, former dean at theJapan campus of Temple University, in Philadelphia.
“There is a general lack of meaningful contribution by Japanese scholars to the international dialogue in their disciplines,” he said, citing low levels of participation in conferences and publication in academic journals, particularly in the social sciences. “If professors can’t be participants in the international dialogue, how can universities themselves become internationalized? Just talking about a flow of a few dozen students back and forth will not make universities international. The flow will come if the institutions themselves become more international.”
國際教育
日本高校國際化慢半拍
報道 2012年10月08日
新山拓也(Takuya Niiyama)是日本國際教養大學(Akita
International
University)的大二學生，他的理想就是要成為一名國際旅行策劃師。他要利用他在大學裡辛苦習得的語言能力和建立起的國際人脈來推動日本北部秋田
地區的旅遊業發展。
新山來自秋田縣。他希望國際教養大學為期一年的海外交換項目能夠幫助他達成目標。
“我需要獲得紮實的英語能力。”他說：“而且我知道一般的日本高校不能很好地培養這項能力。”
隨着日本高校紛紛加大投入實現國際化，擁有着來自全球50多個高校的外國交換生的國際教養大學看來在通向國際化的道路上一馬當先。
在國際教養大學的草創時期，它的校長中島嶺雄(Mineo Nakajima)考察了美國的多所高校，比如加州大學聖迭哥分校(University of California, San Diego) 和位於弗吉尼亞州威廉斯堡的威廉瑪麗學院(The College of William & Mary)。
在2004年成立的國際教養大學和其他幾所高校一起，努力進行着這類教學試驗。但問題是它們在日本並非主流，而只是幾個扎眼的異類。
一些遠離大城市的新學校憑藉著更多的國際學生以及更具有多文化、多語言背景的畢業生，已經領先於那些比它們更大、更古老、反應也更遲鈍的學校。而且他們已經引起了企業招聘部門的注意。
“日本在學術上還在閉門造車。”國際教養大學的校長中島嶺雄說。他曾擔任過東京外國語大學(Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)的校長。
東京大學(The University of Tokyo)是日本最好的高校，14100名本科生中只有53名參加了2011年的國際交換項目，佔總人數的0.4%。
東京的另一所知名高校慶應義塾大學(Keio University)，在2010年輸出133名本科生到國外，佔總人數29000人的0.45%。
根據朝日新聞社(The Asahi Shimbun)出版的高校手冊，2009年，全日本只有八所高校輸出超過100名學生到國外去選修超過16個學分，其中多數是私立學校。（而日本擁有超過700所高校。）
這個現象背後的緣由跟學生去海外留學的積極性低有關，也與學校方面缺乏動力和毅力去實現本校學位項目的國際化不無關係。
東京大學的發言人江川雅子(Masako Egawa)承認，東京大學已經落後於國際和國內的眾多高校。
“確實，我們沒有建立起像很多私立高校那樣完善的國際交換體系。”她在一次採訪中說道。
“不過我們的研究生院在這方面做得還不錯的，我們有18%的研究生來自海外。”
不管怎樣，包括東大在內的多數綜合大學都已經意識到了增加海外交換項目的緊迫性。特別是在日本企業越來越需要能幫助他們實現全球化的畢業生的時候，同時大學也需要在本國人口老齡化的情況下吸引更多學生。
“我們希望看到日本高校越來越國際化，而且隨着日本高校更加國際化，會有越來越多能適應全球化環境的日本年輕人。”日本電氣股份有限公司(NEC Corp.)的高級執行副總裁岩波俊光(Toshimitsu Iwanami)這樣說。日本電氣股份公司是一家大型信息技術服務提供商。
岩波俊光是日本經濟團體聯合會——一個重要的日本企業聯盟——當中負責教育的委員會的領導人。這個委員會曾經呼籲外界更加關注日本高等教育不夠國際化這個問題。
他還補充說日本的僱主們都希望大學能夠向勞動市場提供更多會兩種語言的國際學生。
多數日本的一流高校都在像東京、京都和大阪這樣的大城市裡。它們每年錄取幾千名學生，有着悠久的歷史。這樣的學校延續着高校要發展，就必須做到規模大，歷史久，並且紮根城市的傳統。
但是深得學生和企業僱主認可的國際教養大學卻打破了這個傳統。它成立於2004年，位於秋田市郊外的叢林里，是一所主要通過在秋田縣募資建立，用於培養具有國際視野人才的學校。
學校里半數的教職工都不是日本人，並且所有課程都為英語授課。現在，國際教養大學已經躋身日本頂尖大學的行列，在招生上和大阪大學、東京外國語大學等高校一樣有競爭力。去年，國際教養大學的錄取比例為21比1，申請者需要通過嚴格的選拔考試。
作為一個僅有834名學生的小規模高校，國際教養大學已經成為企業僱主們的心頭好。
“日本最大的企業，還有像摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)這樣的外國公司都派人親自到國際教養大學來主持招聘。”小林弘(Hiroshi Kobayashi)說。他是一本高校行政管理雜誌的主編。“這對於位於遠郊地區的大學而言，是非常罕見的。”他還補充說，一些地區性的大學一般都要靠報 銷旅費的手段來求着企業招聘人員到他們那裡去。
在國際教養大學，有114名國際學生通過這所大學和全球130所高校的交換項目來到這裡學習。
該校校長中島嶺雄說這其中的關鍵在於設計一個和海外大學能完全對接的系統。這其中也有種種困難，大的比如英語課程的缺乏，小的比如課程編號系統和國際通用的體系不符。
另一所成功建立國際項目的高校是立命館亞洲太平洋大學(Ritsumeikan Aisa-Pacific University)，它成立於2000年，位於日本南部九州島的大分縣。
這所大學成立時的校長坂本和一(Kazuichi Sakamoto)說，他當時感到了建立一所全新的國際化大學的緊迫性。
“我們認為對原有體系這裡修一修，那裡補一補並不是辦法。”他說。
於是他和在京都的立命館大學(Ritsumeikan University)的同事們一起，依靠當地官員的幫助，在大分縣成立了一所新的學校。這些官員希望這所大學能推動本地區的復蘇。
“我們工作的關鍵在於‘從內部’進行國際化建設來打造一個由不同國家的學生組成的學校。”坂本和一說。
今天，立命館亞洲太平洋大學已經擁有全日本數量最多，同時也是比例最高的攻讀學位的國際學生。這批學生的總計為2692人，來自81個國家，占學校 學生總數的43%。2011年，這所大學95%的外國畢業生找到了工作。而且像國際教養大學一樣，這所大學也吸引了眾多大公司的招聘人員。
《日本經濟新聞》(The Nikkei Shimbun)這個月發佈了一個調查，調查中問到日本各大企業的人力資源主管哪些大學在能力培養方面是他們目前最關注的。排名前三的答案分別是國際教養大學、東京大學和立命館亞洲太平洋大學。
國際教養大學和立命館亞洲太平洋大學通過兩種不同的途徑實現國際化。但是它們的成功來自一個共同的策略：它們都是另起爐灶的。
專家分析說，日本高校採取的是集體管理制度。自上而下的改革必定要遭遇那些安於現狀的教職人員的阻礙。
“改變現有大學是很困難的。所以你還不如建立一個全新的大學。”中島嶺雄說。“當我擔任東京外國語大學的校長時，我嘗試過重新設計英語課程，將重點主要放在溝通上。”
這個計劃最終擱淺，因為它遭遇了來自英語系教職人員的抵制。
費城天普大學(Temple University)日本分校區的前任校長科克·R·帕特森(Kirk R. Patterson)認為，日本現有問題的答案不應該在於補充國際項目，而在於從根本上扭轉教職工和大學管理者的觀念。
“整體而言，日本學者並未為他們學科的國際交流做出過有價值的貢獻。”他說，並以日本學者在國際會議的低參與度和在國際學術刊物的低發表率作為論 據，這種問題在社會科學研究中表現尤為明顯。“如果教授都不參與到國際對話當中，大學又怎麼能實現國際化呢？僅僅讓一批本國學生出國，再引進一批外國學生 並不能讓學校國際化。如果學校本身變得更加國際化，這樣的生源交換就是水到渠成的事情。”
新山來自秋田縣。他希望國際教養大學為期一年的海外交換項目能夠幫助他達成目標。
*
隨着日本高校紛紛加大投入實現國際化，擁有着來自全球50多個高校的外國交換生的國際教養大學看來在通向國際化的道路上一馬當先。
在國際教養大學的草創時期，它的校長中島嶺雄(Mineo Nakajima)考察了美國的多所高校，比如加州大學聖迭哥分校(University of California, San Diego) 和位於弗吉尼亞州威廉斯堡的威廉瑪麗學院(The College of William & Mary)。
在2004年成立的國際教養大學和其他幾所高校一起，努力進行着這類教學試驗。但問題是它們在日本並非主流，而只是幾個扎眼的異類。
一些遠離大城市的新學校憑藉著更多的國際學生以及更具有多文化、多語言背景的畢業生，已經領先於那些比它們更大、更古老、反應也更遲鈍的學校。而且他們已經引起了企業招聘部門的注意。
“日本在學術上還在閉門造車。”國際教養大學的校長中島嶺雄說。他曾擔任過東京外國語大學(Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)的校長。
東京大學(The University of Tokyo)是日本最好的高校，14100名本科生中只有53名參加了2011年的國際交換項目，佔總人數的0.4%。
東京的另一所知名高校慶應義塾大學(Keio University)，在2010年輸出133名本科生到國外，佔總人數29000人的0.45%。
根據朝日新聞社(The Asahi Shimbun)出版的高校手冊，2009年，全日本只有八所高校輸出超過100名學生到國外去選修超過16個學分，其中多數是私立學校。（而日本擁有超過700所高校。）
這個現象背後的緣由跟學生去海外留學的積極性低有關，也與學校方面缺乏動力和毅力去實現本校學位項目的國際化不無關係。
東京大學的發言人江川雅子(Masako Egawa)承認，東京大學已經落後於國際和國內的眾多高校。
“確實，我們沒有建立起像很多私立高校那樣完善的國際交換體系。”她在一次採訪中說道。
“不過我們的研究生院在這方面做得還不錯的，我們有18%的研究生來自海外。”
不管怎樣，包括東大在內的多數綜合大學都已經意識到了增加海外交換項目的緊迫性。特別是在日本企業越來越需要能幫助他們實現全球化的畢業生的時候，同時大學也需要在本國人口老齡化的情況下吸引更多學生。
“我們希望看到日本高校越來越國際化，而且隨着日本高校更加國際化，會有越來越多能適應全球化環境的日本年輕人。”日本電氣股份有限公司(NEC Corp.)的高級執行副總裁岩波俊光(Toshimitsu Iwanami)這樣說。日本電氣股份公司是一家大型信息技術服務提供商。
岩波俊光是日本經濟團體聯合會——一個重要的日本企業聯盟——當中負責教育的委員會的領導人。這個委員會曾經呼籲外界更加關注日本高等教育不夠國際化這個問題。
他還補充說日本的僱主們都希望大學能夠向勞動市場提供更多會兩種語言的國際學生。
多數日本的一流高校都在像東京、京都和大阪這樣的大城市裡。它們每年錄取幾千名學生，有着悠久的歷史。這樣的學校延續着高校要發展，就必須做到規模大，歷史久，並且紮根城市的傳統。
但是深得學生和企業僱主認可的國際教養大學卻打破了這個傳統。它成立於2004年，位於秋田市郊外的叢林里，是一所主要通過在秋田縣募資建立，用於培養具有國際視野人才的學校。
學校里半數的教職工都不是日本人，並且所有課程都為英語授課。現在，國際教養大學已經躋身日本頂尖大學的行列，在招生上和大阪大學、東京外國語大學等高校一樣有競爭力。去年，國際教養大學的錄取比例為21比1，申請者需要通過嚴格的選拔考試。
作為一個僅有834名學生的小規模高校，國際教養大學已經成為企業僱主們的心頭好。
“日本最大的企業，還有像摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)這樣的外國公司都派人親自到國際教養大學來主持招聘。”小林弘(Hiroshi Kobayashi)說。他是一本高校行政管理雜誌的主編。“這對於位於遠郊地區的大學而言，是非常罕見的。”他還補充說，一些地區性的大學一般都要靠報 銷旅費的手段來求着企業招聘人員到他們那裡去。
在國際教養大學，有114名國際學生通過這所大學和全球130所高校的交換項目來到這裡學習。
該校校長中島嶺雄說這其中的關鍵在於設計一個和海外大學能完全對接的系統。這其中也有種種困難，大的比如英語課程的缺乏，小的比如課程編號系統和國際通用的體系不符。
另一所成功建立國際項目的高校是立命館亞洲太平洋大學(Ritsumeikan Aisa-Pacific University)，它成立於2000年，位於日本南部九州島的大分縣。
這所大學成立時的校長坂本和一(Kazuichi Sakamoto)說，他當時感到了建立一所全新的國際化大學的緊迫性。
“我們認為對原有體系這裡修一修，那裡補一補並不是辦法。”他說。
於是他和在京都的立命館大學(Ritsumeikan University)的同事們一起，依靠當地官員的幫助，在大分縣成立了一所新的學校。這些官員希望這所大學能推動本地區的復蘇。
“我們工作的關鍵在於‘從內部’進行國際化建設來打造一個由不同國家的學生組成的學校。”坂本和一說。
今天，立命館亞洲太平洋大學已經擁有全日本數量最多，同時也是比例最高的攻讀學位的國際學生。這批學生的總計為2692人，來自81個國家，占學校 學生總數的43%。2011年，這所大學95%的外國畢業生找到了工作。而且像國際教養大學一樣，這所大學也吸引了眾多大公司的招聘人員。
《日本經濟新聞》(The Nikkei Shimbun)這個月發佈了一個調查，調查中問到日本各大企業的人力資源主管哪些大學在能力培養方面是他們目前最關注的。排名前三的答案分別是國際教養大學、東京大學和立命館亞洲太平洋大學。
國際教養大學和立命館亞洲太平洋大學通過兩種不同的途徑實現國際化。但是它們的成功來自一個共同的策略：它們都是另起爐灶的。
專家分析說，日本高校採取的是集體管理制度。自上而下的改革必定要遭遇那些安於現狀的教職人員的阻礙。
“改變現有大學是很困難的。所以你還不如建立一個全新的大學。”中島嶺雄說。“當我擔任東京外國語大學的校長時，我嘗試過重新設計英語課程，將重點主要放在溝通上。”
這個計劃最終擱淺，因為它遭遇了來自英語系教職人員的抵制。
費城天普大學(Temple University)日本分校區的前任校長科克·R·帕特森(Kirk R. Patterson)認為，日本現有問題的答案不應該在於補充國際項目，而在於從根本上扭轉教職工和大學管理者的觀念。
“整體而言，日本學者並未為他們學科的國際交流做出過有價值的貢獻。”他說，並以日本學者在國際會議的低參與度和在國際學術刊物的低發表率作為論 據，這種問題在社會科學研究中表現尤為明顯。“如果教授都不參與到國際對話當中，大學又怎麼能實現國際化呢？僅僅讓一批本國學生出國，再引進一批外國學生 並不能讓學校國際化。如果學校本身變得更加國際化，這樣的生源交換就是水到渠成的事情。”
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2010.12日本本科生難覓飯碗 留學生前景光明
如果你是日本剛畢業的大學生﹐那麼你得到就業機會的幾率相當低。日本年輕畢業生缺少就業選擇已經達到了國家危機的程度：根據本月稍早日本政府公佈的一項調查﹐將於明年春季畢業的大學畢業生中﹐截至10月1日只有57.6%的學生獲得了職位﹐創下紀錄低位。
學生就業難凸顯了在日本經濟具有不確定性之際﹐日本企業招聘全職員工時仍較謹慎。與此同時﹐大學畢業生對於就業單位也是挑挑揀揀﹐對於多數日本畢業生來說﹐獲得大企業的就業職位是非常重要的﹐這使得供需情況更加惡化。
但有一個領域供需似乎是平衡的：希望為日本企業工作的亞洲學生和那些希望聘用外國學生的日本企業。隨著日本企業向全球擴展業務﹐他們希望招聘更多既會日語又會說其他語言的外國學生。
日本第四大銀行Resona Holdings近期在日本最精英的學校之一──早稻田大學（Waseda University）為外國學生舉行了一次研討會﹐它的目的是使中國、韓國及俄羅斯學生與日本企業相匹配。早稻田大學和出席的公司都是Resona的客戶。
Resona表示﹐由於它的客戶對聘用外國學生興趣增加﹐它希望為其客戶會見外國學生提供一次機會。
據早稻田大學教務處副主任Ryuichi Okuyama說﹐大約有4,000名外國學生正在該大學學習﹐他們中的許多人希望為日本企業工作。
在25位學生參加的研討會上﹐來自中國的留學生袁綜（音）說﹐她希望為日本一家製造企業或商社工作。她說﹐我希望把日本產品推廣到全世界。正在早稻田大學讀研究生的袁綜補充說﹐近期日本與中國政治關係緊張沒有改變她的志向。
對於企業來說﹐聘用會說日語、本國母語以及英語的外國學生非常有利。
Kuipo Co., Ltd是一家設計、生產和銷售手袋及時髦商品的中型企業﹐已在中國、泰國和法國建立了辦事處。該公司總裁Satoshi Okada說﹐他的公司正在尋找瞭解本土文化﹐未來有能力成為經理的企業員工。
據一些人說﹐不僅是語言技能﹐積極性和雄心也使日本學生和外國學生涇渭分明。早稻田大學的Ryuichi Okuyama說﹐很明顯﹐（早稻田大學）的外國學生比日本學生有更具體的目標和更強的積極性。
Atsuko Fukase
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