Chapter 112 Local state universities are no longer useful
It is well known that Japan's university education lags far behind world standards.Although the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University are ranked in the top 30 in the world, Waseda and Keio Private University, which are considered famous universities, are not even in the top 100.
Although there is a need for reform in university education, it is the national universities that question the necessity of such reform.To be precise, there is no need for local state universities to exist at all.
Because cultivating talents is the practice of developing countries, Japan has already passed that era.
Japan's local national universities were originally established under the policy of enriching the country, strengthening the army and prospering industries in the Meiji era, with the purpose of cultivating international talents. At that time, the local national universities were opened to the society through industry-university cooperation.
However, as mentioned above, industry-university cooperation was abolished after the war, so local national universities were cut off from society.
What's more, once excellent talents stayed in their alma mater, and after several years and decades of patience, they were promoted from assistant professor to associate professor, and then from associate professor to professor. This ridiculous system has been maintained until now.Can worldwide talents be cultivated in such a closed "ivory tower"?
In fact, the current local state universities are constantly losing out to private universities.
The son of a good friend of mine was admitted to a local national university and Waseda University at the same time.If it was in the past, he would have chosen a national university, but now, that child has chosen Waseda University.Although the burden of tuition fees and living expenses will increase, the school has a high employment rate, so parents also agree with his choice.
At that time, some well-known economists who graduated from that national university (one of the Imperial Universities) asked me for advice on the future of their alma mater under the trend of declining birth rate. It turns out that Imperial University is also very deserted!
The biggest reason for the decline of local national universities is that they do not have their own characteristics.Every local national university is a miniature version of the University of Tokyo, and most of the professors and associate professors are graduates who stayed at the school, so the school gradually became closed.In this case, there is no new knowledge at all, so private universities in Tokyo are more optimistic.Now, local excellent students also stay away from local national universities.
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