EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE / Univ. homework starts before enrollment
The following is an installment of The Yomiuri Shimbun's Educational Renaissance series. This part of the series focuses on the latest trends in university entrance examinations.
KYOTO--You might think that university studies don't start until students are officially enrolled, but recently some universities have started instructing successful applicants who have gained admission early without taking conventional entrance examinations. It's almost as if the universities have a responsibility to motivate the students during the long gap between successful application and actual enrollment.
Ritsumeikan University is among the educational institutions offering preenrollment instruction.
"Bear in your mind that if you don't submit the assignments you have been given, your tutors will have words with you about it after you enroll [in April]," said a faculty member of Ritsumeikan University's College of Policy Science during a Dec. 23 briefing session for prospective students at the private university's campus in Kyoto.
Those attending the event, dubbed "Pre--entrance Day," were high school students and other successful candidates who had already gained admission to the university through special screening procedures such as the so-called admission office (AO) process--an approach that selects candidates using a variety of methods including interviews and reviews of documents. This type of selection procedure takes place much earlier than regular entrance exams.
The College of Policy Science gave its prospective students the following assignments:
-- Write impressions of three books from a faculty reading list of 80 titles, using about 2,000 Japanese characters for each work.
-- Write opinions in English, between 50 and 100 words, based on one of several passages in English.
-- Write a report about 2,000 Japanese characters long concerning one of several presentations made by students already enrolled in the college. (The students gave presentations on such themes as "designating World Heritage sites and local environments.")
Nationwide, more than 40 percent of university students today have enrolled without taking conventional scholastic ability tests. At Ritsumeikan, about 30 percent of successful candidates for the 2007 enrollment won their places through early admission procedures, and 80 percent of them--or about 2,200--attended the university's fourth annual Pre-entrance Day.
The briefing session started at 10 a.m. with a lecture by a senior university official who discussed what kind of attitude students should have to help maintain and build on their scholastic abilities. He also explained what support the university offered to successful examinees for this purpose.
The university offers several Internet or correspondence courses on Japanese writing, English, mathematics and other subjects, while instruction on the Test of English as a Foreign Language is offered at its Kyoto campus. All these courses have fees, but every year 65 percent-70 percent of the university's total successful examinees apply to take lectures in the subjects.
"We're responsible for allowing them to enroll at the university without taking scholastic ability tests," said Makoto Katsumura, 49, an associate professor who is head of a university office set up to promote smooth translation from high school education. "Even if we can secure excellent students, it's meaningless if they lose their passion for study by the time they are actually enrolled."
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University--Ritsumeikan's sister institution in Beppu, Oita Prefecture--also offers similar courses, dubbed "Precollege Courses." These courses are actually run by Waseda juku prep school at its facilities in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The five courses deal with science, math and even "common sense" for student life.
Many other universities also offer similar kinds of preenrollment instruction. According to the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, for the 2006 enrollment, 222 out of the nation's 425 universities made their prospective students write reports, while 152 gave assignments on specific subjects. Writing reports about books was a requirement of 130 universities, while 81 put on lectures.
The AO process of screening candidates continues to spread, with 45 national and public universities, as well as 380 private institutions, using this approach for the 2006 enrollment, according to the ministry. These figures represent about 30 percent of national and public universities, and about 70 percent of all private bodies.
Currently, each national university can allocate up to 30 percent of its whole enrollment quota to those accepted through the AO approach. However, the Japan Association of National Universities has decided to allow its members to increase this ratio up to 50 percent beginning with the 2008 enrollment.
"With more enrollments through the AO approach, universities will have a new field to compete in terms of the preenrollment education they can offer," said Shigeru Ando, 53, a senior researcher at major prep school Yoyogi Seminar. "In doing so, this kind of education will probably split into two very different extremes--those offering remedial education of a high school level, and those giving a head start on university-level education."
Would-be art students can now phone in exams
OSAKA--Mobile phones are nearly as common as pencil cases in Japanese high schools these days, so one specialized university now offers an entrance exam that encourages students to use their phones the way they would use their pencils--to create art.
For a one-month period ending in mid-September 2006, Osaka Electro-Communication University's Department of Digital Art and Animation held what it called a "keitai entrance exam." Candidates who applied for admission via this method sent images they took using camera-equipped cell phones to a designated university e-mail address.
The images varied from landscapes and portraits to models of buildings the examinees made on their own. The rule was to make one work consisting of six images, giving comments on each one.
It was the second time the department administered a mobile phone entrance exam, with "Expanding" as the theme for the 2007 enrollment. After interviews with the examinees, who were required to explain the ideas behind their works, 21 of them passed successfully.
Before the introduction of the keitai entrance exams, some at the private university worried that the technique might not appear serious enough for an entrance exam, while others expressed concern about how submitted images could be verified as work created by the examinees themselves.
However, the university ultimately gave the go-ahead, concluding that the new method would work well enough as an entrance exam as long as the interviewers carefully listened to examinees' ideas about their submitted works.
Before introducing the keitai entrance exam, the Department of Digital Art and Animation had already administered three types of exams that did not involve conventional scholastic ability tests: the "art type," which involves an interview and drawing on the spot; the "creation type," in which the examinee brings sample artworks, such as digital images, music and animated images to an interview; and the "communication type," which consists of an interview and an essay.
The first two types are designed for examinees who are confident about their own artistic skills, while the last one is intended for those good at planning and presentation. The newly introduced keitai entrance exam is thought to appeal to those who fall somewhere between the two groups.
"Making a work consisting of six images is almost equal to storyboarding, which is necessary for producing video works," said Naoya Terayama, 38, associate professor who proposed the introduction of the keitai exam.
"So there's also a message in this approach: 'You can produce video works even if you've never formally studied the arts.'"