Title: NSF/Tokyo Report: An Overview of Engineering Education in Japan Date: 4/28/97 The National Science Foundation's offices in Tokyo and in Paris periodically report on developments abroad that are related to the Foundation's mission. These documents present facts for the use of NSF program managers and policy makers; they are not statements of NSF policy. Special Scientific Report #97-08 (April 16, 1997) An Overview of Engineering Education in Japan The following report was prepared by Ms. Susan Coady Kemnitzer, Deputy Director, Engineering Education and Centers Division at the National Science Foundation. Ms. Kemnitzer visited Japan from November 26, 1996 - January 4, 1997 as a Visiting Research Fellow (short-term) under the sponsorship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). Professor Itsuo Ohnaka of Osaka University served as host scientist for Ms. Kemnitzer. Ms. Kemnitzer may be reached via email at: skemnitz@nsf.gov. * * * * * From November 26, 1996 to January 4, 1997, I visited Japan as a guest of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to study engineering education reform. I met over 100 persons, including students, faculty, deans, presidents, government officials and industry leaders. I visited 16 universities, 2 high schools, 4 companies, 1 research institute, and 3 government agencies, ranging geographically from Hokkaido to Kyushu. The hospitality and generosity of my hosts were outstanding. The exchange of ideas and quality of discussions were excellent. During my study, I explored three key themes: 1. What is the role of government in catalyzing education reform? 2. How can universities enhance the teaching of creativity in engineering students? 3. How can more young people be attracted to careers in science and engineering? Here is a summary of my impressions on each theme and some general recommendations. Theme 1. What is the role of government in catalyzing education reform? Given the National Science Foundation efforts over the past several years to stimulate reform of U. S. undergraduate engineering education, I was intrigued by how such reform was being undertaken in Japan. My initial impression was that, having a relatively homogenous system of universities and a centralized regulatory agency in the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (MONBUSHO), change would be easier to accomplish in Japan than in the U. S. Indeed the timing for my trip was excellent for investigating this question. Japan had just embarked on implementing the Science and Technology Basic Law that established a broad and ambitious plan for changing government support of science and technology in Japan. Government investment in R&D will increase by 17 billion yen over the next five years and many government regulations of university research and education will be changed. The role of government agencies, especially MONBUSHO, is quite strong in science and technology in Japan. The universities are autonomous, but the regulations imposed by MONBUSHO are quite influential. For the national universities, these regulations affect key features of university life, such as number of students admitted to each department, number and rank of faculty members, and size and use of building space. MONBUSHO also makes influential suggestions to universities, such as: 1) emphasizing interdisciplinary work in graduate study, 2) improving the system of "general education," 3) redesigning the "core curriculum" of undergraduate study, 4) adding more entrepreneurial studies through establishing venture laboratories on some university campuses, and 5) urging the self-evaluation of each department and university. In each case mentioned above, MONBUSHO only issues policies for change but does not prescribe exactly what the reform should look like. However, given the cumulative effect of all of these policies, the role of the government is perceived to be quite large by the faculty. This in turn seems to reduce the faculty's propensity to innovate and genuinely engage in meaningful change. Added to this situation is industry's skepticism about the value and scope of what students can learn at a university, and its practice of making early job offers to students without regard for their academic performance. All of this mitigates against faculty investing time and energy into making meaningful changes in the undergraduate curriculum and methods of instruction. Attaining the goals in the Science and Technology Basic Plan will, in my view, require major changes in the universities. Implementation of the plan will require more than just increased funding. More Japanese students must pursue PhDs, young researchers must be given more freedom and independent research support, the environment for university research must be improved, and university laboratories must be modernized to support state of the art work. The main features of the Science and Technology Basic Plan are well designed by government policymakers, but the ultimate success of the plan will depend upon the freedom and creativity of the university faculty and students. I believe that the role of the government must change too. The history of prescribing policies for Japanese universities tends to dampen innovation and initiative rather than spur intended change. The centralized control often leads to changes that are superficial and transitory. For example, much more effort seems to go into reorganizing departments and changing names than into real intellectual cross-fertilization of research and education. The government agencies might consider changing their research and education grant processes as a means to initiating more meaningful change at the universities. Taking one example, the MONBUSHO suggests that universities create a core curriculum for undergraduate students. This could be done by a competitive grant process to develop several approaches. A more competitive process for choosing projects to fund could help build capacity and raise the quality of the research and education supported by the government. Suggested steps in the process should include: 1) issuing a call for proposals for a particular topic. The process of schools or teams of schools preparing and submitting proposals would stimulate creative thinking on this topic. 2) reviewing the proposals through seeking the advice of a panel of experts. This process hones and enriches the reviewers' thinking. 3) returning the written reviews verbatim to the proposers to enable them to improve their next proposal. 4) adding the judgment and guidance of the staff of the funding agencies in order to encourage stronger proposals in the next round of competition. This requires that the staff have significant subject matter expertise. Each of these steps individually, and especially when taken together, would do much to improve the capacity of the system. When a grant is made, it should require a commitment on the part of the awardees to assess of the results achieved under it, and to disseminate these results widely to other potential users. It would be beneficial to extend the duration of awards to at least three years to allow for the more orderly and productive expenditure of grant money. Presently, there is a tendency to overemphasize equipment purchases because this is the easiest and sometimes only way to expend the funds in the time period allowed. The role of the faculty must change also. The faculty member as "sage" is not sufficient in the Japan of the new Science and Technology Basic Plan. Faculty must not only teach and do research, they must produce results, publish these results aggressively, argue with colleagues around the world about them, listen carefully to the counter arguments, and then adapt and refine their research and education directions. Ultimately, they must explain the significance of their results to the Japanese taxpayer. How are the faculty going to fill this role? Perhaps the rarest commodity for the faculty now is time. Given the structure of the universities, each professor spends a large amount of time on administrative matters. Perhaps consolidating some of these duties in fewer people would free others to devote more energy to innovation in research and education. Theme 2. How can universities enhance the teaching of creativity in engineering students? Much has been written about how little opportunity Japanese students have to develop creativity given the constraints and pressures of precollege education and the National Entrance Exam. Companies also talk about the desire to hire more "creative" employees, especially now that industry is trying to transform from an "imitator" to "creator" of technology. However, company recruiters still rely on the entrance exam to pre-select students and require little "value added" from the university experience. Whatever the source of the problem, most students have neither opportunity to practice more creative technical skills at the university nor are they exposed to creativity in the arts, music and literature in the formal university curriculum. I found some notable examples of efforts to include design in the engineering curriculum. These take the form of courses that are organized around group projects on real world problems. Only one university I visited purposefully changed the curriculum to include engineering design in courses across the curriculum and in each year of study. These efforts are very promising and should be evaluated carefully to provide information for their own continuous improvement, and to document what was done as a guide for other universities. Also commendable are the efforts to encourage students to work together outside of class on team projects or homework. I also observed that the widely used 4th year thesis experience, might be expanded into the 3rd and 2nd year. Perhaps students could have experiences in more than one laboratory or achieve more depth in one particular area. Finally, one important factor is how the National Entrance Exam dictates a student's choice of major. For example, medicine requires the highest score. Student interest and aptitude have little to do with acceptance into a field of study. Many students who wanted to be doctors did not achieve high enough scores to be admitted and therefore settled for engineering instead. As a result, some students have little interest in the subject they are studying, which must negatively affect their enthusiasm and creativity. Theme 3. How can more young people be attracted to careers in science and engineering? The key to attracting more Japanese students to science and engineering study lies in the pathway to the university. As one high school teacher so poignantly stated, "Students must choose to be a 'person' or to study science and engineering. Very few can do both given the time demands of Entrance Exam preparation." It is no wonder that fewer students are choosing this narrow and hard path. The pressures and constrictions are unattractive to many and the first two years of science and engineering university curriculum are boring and unattractive to students and faculty alike. The Science and Technology Basic Plan proposes several good ideas for increasing public understanding of science and engineering and promoting careers in these fields. However, in my opinion, these motivational experiences, even if excellent, will not be able to surmount the negative effect of the Entrance Exam. Looking ahead to the drastic decline of 18 year-olds in the population of Japan, this question of attracting more students to science and engineering is an urgent concern for universities who will have to compete for students. Among other things, schools should consider actively recruiting women students. Presently only seven percent of engineering students are women, while percentages in medicine, pharmacy, and architecture are much higher. Summary My visit to Japan was brief, only six weeks, but I would like to offer some suggestions based on this experience. Suggestions for the Japanese government include: a. strengthen the competitive review process for research and education funding b. provide more support to young researchers c. invest routinely in laboratory and classroom construction and maintenance d. revise fiscal management to allow longer duration of grants e. increase support stipends and tuition grants to graduate students For universities: a. encourage faculty to publish and promote their work in the international science and engineering community b. consolidate administrative functions c. infuse design throughout the undergraduate engineering curriculum d. assess and evaluate both research and education results For industry: a. assist in the implementation of the Science and Technology Basic Plan and the suggestions above Conclusion Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Walter Mondale, reflected on relations between Japan and the U.S. at the time of his retirement. He welcomed Japan's new Science and Technology Basic Plan. He noted that our two countries should not behave as adversaries, but as Olympic athletes who as competitors drive each other to higher levels of achievement for the benefit of the world.