Japanese higher education was once instrumental in transforming Japan and creating a uniform enlightened citizenry, which shared the ethics of a common work culture. But after sixty years it has become a “happy play ground” for students to pursue their favorite hobby through university clubs and friendship groups. The pre-war German model and the postwar American model have now outlived their purpose. The development of a global knowledge-based international society is now questioning the rubrics of the Japanese model of higher education.

Like any other postindustrial society, Japan too faces many structural problems in higher education related to resource allocation, university hierarchies, hiring processes, ethnic diversity and formulating curricula that leave both the faculty and graduates dissatisfied. The traditional purpose for which these universities were created has become so eroded that most universities find it difficult to distinguish the means from the ends. Instead of a serious debate on overhauling the educational system completely, Japan hopes that its outmoded system would still work with a little bit of tinkering. 

Even the pretentious few universities which claim to pursue sound scholarship adopt a highly protectionist employment system where international competition is shunned. Most foreign teachers at Japanese universities are forced into language sections where they conduct English conversation or writing classes without the hope of entering mainstream teaching or participating in its decision-making processes. The woefully low academic standards at Japanese universities have forced most of its faculty and students out of international competition into a parochial and nationalistic vision of a “beautiful Japan”. Wanting to improve the standards of Japanese higher education and make it internationally competitive, Tokyo University plans to recruit bright young students from India to come and study in Japan.

In recent years India has created a lot of hype in Japan. The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to India from August 20th to 23rd of August 2007 has further augmented this hype. Both the Japanese media and intelligentsia believe that in the last decade India has excelled in many areas from information technology and medicine to overseas investment and academic cooperation. Japan therefore wants the very best talent from India. It desires the top companies to invest in Japan. It wishes IIT students to come to its universities. It seeks top Indian politicians and CEOs to lecture in Japan. This tendency is termed in Japan as ‘brand hunting’. The fetish for brand names does not necessarily ensure quality or benefit, though brands are hard to get. By and large Japan assumes that its status as an advanced nation should be enough to attract the crème da la crème from India.

To further this goal, on August 21, 2007, The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (or MEXT, the precursor to the erstwhile Monbusho) conducted its first joint meeting with representatives of Indian universities. Most Japanese universities like Tokyo University are keen to invite the very best students from India to study at their prestigious campuses as they feel the urgency to compete effectively with other universities in Asia like Peking University or Jawaharlal Nehru University According to The Times, London, Tokyo University, the premier university in Japan, is fast losing its edge in Asia. In just three years it has slipped from the twelfth position in the world to the nineteenth because of its tardiness or even reluctance to become more international. It is quite worried by the fact that Peking University has become the top-ranking university in Asia. It is also quite concerned that the information technology departments at Indian universities have ten times more students than departments at Japanese universities. It is somewhat troubled that over the decades Indian universities have forged important academic links both with Britain and the United States, which have given them an edge, which it does not have.

In order to gain lost ground Tokyo University plans to woo Indian students, whose numbers are abysmally low in Japan, by opening a representative office in New Delhi next year. Last year itself only ten Indian students were enrolled in different course at Tokyo University, while at the same time 679 Chinese students and 502 South Korean students studied here. The new plan envisaged by the University for India involves joint research projects and admissions in its various faculties. Most Japanese universities hope that these spectacular superficial plans would undoubtedly attract exceptional Indian students from elite institutions from India to come and study in Japan.

Well, easier said than done. The haunting question is why these supposedly brilliant Indian students do not want to come to Japan, even when Japanese universities are inviting them with open arms? This question is not so difficult for Indian students to answer but incomprehensible to government planners. As Indian students gradating from prestigious institutions like the IITs, IIMs or St. Stephen’s College would tell you, that even before they graduate they have secured admissions to equally prestigious institutions in the U.S. or Britain with full scholarships. Such students not only aspire to do well at American universities but actually do well and then find a job, get a green card, buy a house within a few years and settle down with equal rights as any other native born American citizens. They can then decide to retain their Indian citizenship or become a U.S. citizen. These students would like to know if Japan could do better.

The Japanese system of university employment is heavily biased against foreign academics. There is no transparency in the salary structure. It is virtually impossible for Indian academics to find tenured professorship; and the immigration laws do not make things easy. The chances of Indian students getting absorbed as tenured faculty after completing their doctoral program are minimal or nonexistent. To add to all this Indian students would have to invest a couple of years learning the Japanese language and bear with the high cost of living and studying in Japan. After they procure a degree what are they expected to do? Go back to India and become an interpreter! Or join a Japanese company in India as an executive on an Indian salary! You must be kidding!

This does not mean that Indian students will not come to Japan even when they are wooed. India is a vast country with 369 universities and 18064 colleges. Over eleven million students are enrolled at these universities and colleges where English is largely the medium of instruction.*  There are thousands of students who do not belong to the prestigious institutions named earlier. They come from middle-level universities and see Japan as a possible destination to secure a future. Such students may not have found a good American or European university to go to and they would be most willing to try their hand at a Japanese university. The bind however is that Japanese universities do not want such students; they want the very best.

Some of the good academic institutions in India like St. Xavier’s College Bombay, Loyola College Madras and St. Stephen’s College Delhi have developed through the sustained and dedicated effort of early educators both Indian and English. One of the most prestigious colleges like St. Stephen’s College was set up in 1881 in a rented room in Chandni Chowk by members of the Cambridge Brotherhood to educate the poor and underprivileged sections of Indian society. Over a century ago English missionaries like Samuel Scott Allnutt, John Wright and Rev. G. Hibbet Ware made sustained efforts to develop quality education in India, and groomed brilliant native teachers like Sushi Kumar Rudra and S. N. Mukarji who carried the college forward through their sagacity and scholarship. Only now after a century it is possible to see the fruits of their labors. The United States and Britain employ brilliant South Asian teachers not only in their social sciences and history departments but also in English departments—teachers such as Dipesh Chakravarty, late A. K. Ramanujan and Braj Kachru. Unless Japan provides equal opportunity to Indian educators, at par with Japanese educators, it cannot become international in the true sense, nor develop academic institutions, par excellence.

It must be remembered that excellence in higher education and proficiency in the English language at universities and colleges in India came at a price. The Anglicization of Indian education gave an edge to the educated classes, and after independence some of these universities and college turned elitist and produced bureaucrats, politicians and educators that transformed India. However, most Indians by gaining a predominantly western education lost their own unique cultural heritage.

Japan wants to retain its cultural heritage and still gain an edge in English and western education. It now wants to bring about sweeping “education reforms” by introducing “traditional values” which would instill a greater sense of patriotism amongst its young people. It is not possible to eat your cake and have it too! Japan is the only country where the money spent on English learning is highest and the results lowest. In this prickly situation it is rather difficult to evolve a truly egalitarian and international education. 

September 9, 2007

* Japan has 707 universities, 508 colleges with a total enrollment of over three million students.

Image of Tokyo University under license with Gettyimages.com

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