Akita universities to work on internationalization togetherBy Shinsuke Ishiguro
Shinsuke Ishiguro / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
Three universities in Akita Prefecture have agreed to work together to attract foreign students from overseas so that they will have 800 such students by 2020--about three times the current level--the institutions announced recently.
The three institutions are national Akita University and two public institutions run by the prefectural government--Akita Prefectural University and Akita International University (AIU), the latter of which teaches all its courses in English.
The three universities had a total 243 foreign students as of September this year, with 130 at Akita University, 102 at AIU and 11 at Akita Prefectural University. They come from 34 countries and territories. Chinese form the largest group, with 63, while 31 U.S. and 28 South Korean students are also studying there.
The three institutions hope that attracting more and more excellent students from overseas will motivate their Japanese counterparts to improve their academic achievement and work harder on their own research, while at the same time boosting the universities' profiles outside Japan.
The agreement among the three institutions is in line with a policy that the Education, Science and Technology Ministry has created to increase the number of foreign students in Japan to 300,000 by 2020 from the current level of 118,000. The ministry will designate universities that have been working to attract such students as pilot institutions starting in the next academic year--beginning April 2009--and will provide them with subsidies to support the measures they will implement. (244 words)
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