A Guest Article by Donna Scott on Education Reform

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

In this site and elsewhere I often discuss education reform in the world and in Japan because it is the most important policy issue of Japan and the world.  Frequent visitors to this site understand my points and views well.

Recently, I received a message from Donna Scott, who asked if I would consider a guest article. Obviously, she is involved with new types of educational system, ie, <onlineschool.net> as below;

http://onlineschool.net/2009/08/11/100-awesome-ways-to-use-duct-tape-in-your-dorm-room/
http://onlineschool.net/2009/08/04/100-best-book-blogs-for-history-buffs/

So I replied ‘why not?’

Below is her essay with a timely topics at the time of Lower House election of Japan, ‘New Party Could Mean Changes in Educational Testing’. (Full text is also copied below)

Your thoughts? And get involved in the connecting world.

******************************************************************************

New Party Could Mean Changes in Educational Testing

The Democratic Party of Japan has stated that if it wins the upcoming election it would make some changes to the current educational system. Announced Monday, the party would drastically scale back the national achievement examinations given to students in their sixth year of elementary school and third year of junior high.

It doesn’t all have to do with education, however, as the concerns are more budgetary than anything else. The party believes that by only have a few sample schools take the exams that the government could save nearly 4 billion Yen each year, a large sum considering current economic difficulties facing leaders.

The tests themselves would also be altered, focusing on a wider variety of subjects rather than just focusing on Japanese and Math. Students from a wider range of grades would also take part in the testing, showing the performance levels of students in more than the two grades currently tested.

The exam is far from being an academic tradition; it was only reinstated in 2007 after leaders felt there had been a marked decrease in the quality of education and the academic abilities of students. As of present, all public schools participate in the testing and over half of private schools submitted their students? results. New regulations would test only a few of these schools as a means to find a balance between the need to gauge academic performance and cut expenses from the budget.

The current ruling party, if it maintains power, has no plans to scale back the testing, citing that students are still having difficulties with the utilization of knowledge as tests from the past few years have shown little change in this respect. It is expected, however, that the DPJ will score a landslide victory in the election, almost guaranteeing changes to the current testing plan, for better or worse.

This year it was the students in Akita and Fukui prefectures who scored the best in exams taken this April. This is their third straight year at the top of the ranks. Overall, the percentage of correct answers rose significantly from last year, but many believe that this is because the overall difficulty of the test was decreased. Problems still remain as there is a large gap between the schools in the top and bottom prefectures, showing that some schools may need additional resources and help to bring their students up to the level of those in other public education systems.

This post was contributed by Donna Scott, who writes about the best online schools. She welcomes your feedback at DonnaScott9929 yahoo.com

********************************************************************************

Reformer of Education for the Global Age

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

After the Rehman shock, Japanese economy’s status is worse than it was initially anticipated by domestic authorities and the weakness of the structure of industry is rising to the surface.  ‘The 1955 Regime’, beginning of ‘Iron-Triangle Regime’ of Post-War Japan coming to a deadlock may have something to do with this.  When situations like this take place, it is always the case that some people start discussing “Leader theory” that sounds nostalgic of the activities of the people in the Meiji era such as in the novel by Ryotaro Shiba, “Saka no Ue no Kumo” (Ref. 1).  However, the situation is very different today and their viewpoints seem irrelevant.　

Changes in the world today will not wait for Japan to catch up.  If we think of 5, 10, 20 years ahead from now, it is perfectly clear that the producing future human resources should be the most important basis of national policies (in Japanese).  Search in this site by keywords such as “human resources”, or “education” since there are many columns that I have written on this theme.

Budget for education is extremely small in Japan compared to other developed countries.  Political parties at last came up with manifests with budgets for “children, education” included for the next Shugi-in election ? a speed not at all impressively wonderful.

However, though reinforcement of conventional budget on education is important, it is much more necessary to create strong policies for producing variety of talents for the future challenges.  At present, the changes in this nation are too small and timid even at the level of university education.  I have been pointing this out so many times in this site (Ref.1, 2) and although I do notice some good drastic attempts they are unfortunately too small to become big trends.  Such activities at Asia Pacific University or Akita International University , for example, are not well known even in Japan.  Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, HItotsubashi University  is a revolutionary program open to the world and is evaluated highly by international standards.

By the way, reforms are underway in many of the Western universities as well as in the field of education utilizing IT technologies such as internet where totally new potentials are being sought after or being put into practice.  In this respect there are several Japanese active in overseas universities such as Dr. Miyagawa who was involved in the development of MIT’s OpenCourseWare  or Dr. Iiyoshi, who is seeking for new possibilities having recently moved to MIT from the Carnegie Foundation.

I met Dr. Iiyoshi in Dubai last year (Ref.1, 2)  Recently he edited and published a book “Opening Up Education” together with Dr. Vijay Kumar.  The book is highly evaluated as you can see from the book reviews written by people such as Dr. Charles Vest (who was the President of MIT for many years.  Search for topics related to him in my site.)

Img_13831

Photo: Dr. Iiyoshi and I at GRIPS

Recently, I had an opportunity to see Dr. Iiyoshi.  I learned that there is a possibility of unimaginably big change in the field of education in this “Flattening” world.  People of the world are very much devoted in effort to produce leaders who will lead the politics, industries, universities in the global societies with clear vision, strong will, and strong energy by strengthening the potentials of young generation, their spirits of challenge, minds not afraid to change in the face of this global age.

I strongly advise people of Japan to listen open mindedly to the opinions of educators such as Drs. Miyagawa and Iiyoshi, who have minds full of love for the nation (see footnote), working actively at “outside”, seeing Japan from “outside”

Footnote: Person with love for the nation as I understand is “Patriot” not “Nationalist”.

Jaques Attali; A brief history of the future ? a brave and controversial look at the twenty-first century

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

Photo_2

To trace the history of humans and predict the future ? this is always important at any time.  “Wise men learn from history, fools learn from experience”, “Historia Majistra Vitae”…. East or west, same kind of sayings are inherited.  They are the “wisdom of human kind”. Here in this site also, I have sent out messages of the like for a number of times. (For references in Japanese, please see 1, 2, 3, 4)

In my last posting I introduced a book by Fareed Zakaria, but “a brief history of the future ? a brave and controversial look at the twenty-first century”  written by Jaques Attali, one of the greatest intellectuals of France today, is equally very powerful and provocative.  This book predicts the world in the 21st century by sorting out “keywords to analyze the past and predict how our world will look like in the 21st century” from the long history of human beings. “Laws of history, rules for success are also applicable for future.  Understanding them will enable us to predict how the future will be…”.

For the Japanese edition, a short chapter titled “21st century ? will Japan survive?” is added as well as a chapter titled “Will France survive in the history of the 21st century?” in the end.  Anyway, the Japanese edition looks much more voluminous compared to English edition although I cannot read French original to compare.

Many of you might have seen the 2 hours’ interview with Jack Atari regarding this book on NHK.

The book’s content is structured by 6 chapters:
1. A Very Long History
2. A Brief History of Capitalism
3. The End of the American Empire
4. First Wave of the Future: Planetary Empire
5. Second Wave of the Future: Planetary War
6. Third Wave of the Future: Planetary Democracy

It was first published in 2006, but in “The Beginning of the End” of 2nd chapter it says: “Proliferating, excessive, limitless, and out of control, the American financial system requires profitability rates that industry cannot deliver, to the point where industrial corporations now lend their money in the financial sector rather than invest it in their own activities…” and “”Salary-earners are also increasingly indebted, especially in regard to two public corporations (Fannie Mae, second-ranking American corporation, and the fifth-ranked Freddie Mac), which hold or stand behind five trillion dollars’ worth of mortgage loans, a debt multiplied by four in ten years….” (p.98,99)  Here, we may say that Attalie predicted the subprime mortgage crisis as the financial panic started in the summer of 2007.

Attalie also introduces concept of “Core cities” and writes that “It constantly reinvents itself in a unique shape, around a single center, a single core, which attracts an innovative class (shipbuilders manufacturers, traders, technicians, and financiers) marked by its taste for the new and its passion for discovery.  Until a crisis, or a war, leads to replacement of one core by another. (p.35)

Many “lessons for the future” are given, but here I will list just a few:                  “transmission is a condition of progress" (p.5)
"a new communications technology, seen as a centralizing influence, turns out to be the implacable enemy of the powers that be." (p.50, footnote *1)
"the authoritarian state creates the market, which in its turn creates democracy." (p.69)
"the link between technology and sexuality underpins the whole dynamic of the mercantile order." (p.81)
"many major innovations result from the work of researchers paid out of public funds to look into something utterly different." (p.90)

Sub-titles illustrate brilliantly of the 21st century phenomenon that appears.  For example;
“Nomadic Ubiquity” (Arrival of Nomadic Ubiquity that Changes History)
“Irretrievable Scarcities” (Environment of Earth in the Future)
“Time: The Only True Scarcity” (Time: The Only True Scarcity Left)
And so on…
(In the parenthesis are sub-titles from Japanese edition for your reference.)

Then, the 4th Chapter begins.  First, second, and third waves of the future are described.

How can I describe the content?  Stimulating, horrifying, provocative… I have a feeling that most of them will actually realize.  There are many signs even now.

After reading, I thought of Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed”

I recommend these books in addition to “The Post-American World”.  Please keep them in your mind and read whenever you have opportunities.

Footnote 1:  I also have been pointing out the weakness of “Vertical Society” in a “Flat World” by quoting Latin words “Incunabulum, Incunabula” in number of lectures.  For instance, please see my columns 1, 2, or 3.

A beautiful project: “Grameen Change Makers Program”

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

Three sophomores of Waseda University and their partners visited me in December last year.  When they traveled to Bangladesh they were extremely shocked by its situation and “wanted to find out what we can do, to eventually change Japan from there, and we are definitely doing it!” they said.

They returned to Bangladesh, saw more people, and one of them are already starting activities by taking one year leave of absence from the university.  I was unable to see this person, but the remaining two came over to see me and give me follow ups of their activities (their blog (in Japanese) is filled with passion and photos.)

Many plans are going on ? one of them is "Grameen Change Makers Program". This program shows their wonderful ability to think, move, and act.  Their ideas come from their local experience and we can also see their strong message to Japan from the plan.  I am also very pleased to know that they are having lots of advice from Professor Seiichiro Yonekura of Hitotsubashi University.

The point here is: "Local experience matters".  It is where you find what you have in yourself.  No meaningful contribution is possible without this, just as I have said in my recent column.

Also, it is a very nice thing to take a year of leave of absence from the University.  I would like to recommend taking a leave or joining in a student exchange program for a year to many university students as possible. Universities will supposedly not charge tuitions from students on leave, but I even think it is high time that universities, or even governments, consider offering financial supports for such cases.  (See article "Opening Japan Up to the World" by Kurokawa.  Registration at Science Magazine necessary.)  Companies could give scholarships, too.  Nothing but such communication/exchanges of youths are so crucially important for the upbringing of  human resources that shape the future of Japan.

I urge young people to join this "Grameen Change Makers Program" (this website is in Japanese) and ask everyone to support them.  Universities and companies, too.  The future of Japan depends on more and more expansion of such movements and activities.

Influenza and Civilization

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

The "swine flu" outbreak that started in late April this year swept the whole world into a big fuss.  Fortunately this time, the swift scientific analysis and action, together with the world wide sharing of information seem to have succeeded in preventing disastrous human, social, or economical damage.

If we look back carefully into our history as human beings, it is clear that our past had been a constant battle with pandemics, and basically, as mankind and their activities spread over this planet, this battle will inevitably keep on taking place repeatedly.

From this perspective, I have written an article  "Influenza and Civilization"(in Japanese) in the July edition of monthly magazine "Shincyo 45"(in Japanese).

Look back into the history and think about the future.  This is a very important large scale framework for thinking, whatever the theme may be.

"A Brief History of the Future: A Brave and Controversial Look at the Twenty-First Century" by Jacque Atalli was published in 2006, and its Japanese translation in 2008.  This book writes about the history of mankind in a tremendous large scale and aims to foresee the world as it may be in the 21st century.  The change described here is of an unbelievably high speed, unimaginable from our current common sense.  But this could really happen.

The Nobel Prize and Academy Award

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

These two awards are considered broadly as the highest honor in the world in the field of "Science, Peace, Literature" and "Motion Pictures" respectively.

Many Japanese were awarded the Nobel Prize as we entered 21st century.  And last year we achieved a great success of having four "Japanese" awarded the prize in the field of science (i.e. Drs. Nanbu, Kobayashi, Masukawa, and Shimomura.  Although a question remains on the definition of the "Japanese"-how do we define or categorize them; by "Nationality?" "Blood?" "University they graduated?" or what?…).

As for this year’s Academy Award, a Japanese film "Departures" won the foreign language film award and "La Maison En Petit Cubes" won the short film (animated) award.  This is fabulous.  I am very pleased and happy.

The "Departures" received many other prizes in Japan and was well known throughout the nation.  "La Maison En Petit Cubes" is a 12 minutes animation short film and had been highly evaluated internationally.

The "Diamond weekly," a Japanese business magazine, set up a series of "Nobel Prize and Academy Award" and planned to have Koichi Tanaka at Shimadzu Corporation (Ref.), a Nobel Laureate, and Kunio Kato, director of "La Maison En Petit Cubes," at ROBOT join in a dialogue.  This is a unique idea.  And it so happened, though I don’t know why, that they named me to host the event and believe it or not I actually accepted the offer.

I have seen Dr. Koichi Tanaka a number of times before and am well informed about his research achievements but this time I gathered quite a volume of information about the two people, especially Mr. Kato’s works, before challenging this task of hosting the dialogue.  At the event, I urged them to talk about similarities and differences between each other etc.  It was quite an enjoyable time.

Now, how would the outcomes be?  I shall introduce it to you once the magazine is released. (The magazine was published. Click here for my report on this.)

Editors, "yoroshiku onegai shimasu (I trust the matter in your good hands)".

Beautiful Japan (with her own problems)

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

Dr. Nassrine Azimi, Director, UNITAR, Hiroshima office, is one of true intellectuals and good company I very much respect. We have been working together since her arrival to Japan some five years ago as you may see some of my earlier reports(Ref.1, 2).

She very much fell in love with Japan and Hiroshima, and also shares my concern on various issues of Japan. Recently, she wrote a stunningly beautiful Op-Ed on Japan in New York Times with a quote on my thoughts on reform in education.

I wish to share her Op-Ed with you. Enjoy it.

Seize the Opportunity, Time for Big Change. But Where are Leaders?

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

Situation of Japan is not good at all.  Of course, same can be said for the rest of the world.  Everybody is trying to make changes and searching for future perspectives of politics, industry, economy, education, etc.

As for the national vision as I see it, I have been sending out messages again and again from the start of the New Year.  On the April 25 issue of Diamond Weekly Magazine(in Japanese only) an article based on interview with me was published under the title of "Let Japan go and sell clean energy technologies to China & India ! "(the article is in Japanese only).  Here, as always, people give countless reasons why they cannot change, why they cannot do.  In politics, industries, or whatever, I urge the leaders to straighten up.

Mr. Hatoyama was elected the President of the Democratic Party.  How will the politics move?

In Japan, people are talking mostly about the revised budget which is almost "dumping" of public resources, and this is greatly affecting the political situation.  It appears to be "scattering money" to vested interest groups, "lucky dips" by Ministries and Departments.  No one is drawing visions for the future nor seizing this rare chance for a drastic change.  I can even hear irresponsible big laughter of some people.

Same thing for science and technology policies.  A mega budget of 300 billion yen( 3.1 billion dollars) was appropriated like a bolt from the blue.  But for what and how?  Please watch carefully.  It is of a very different kind compared to the science and technology policies of President Obama.

A nation not investing to young generation has no future.  It is very important to let young people see and experience the broad world outside so to prepare them for the global age.  Young people are precisely "the" asset of the nation in the future.

Gairdner Award – Dr. Yamanaka, Dr. Mori and their wonderful predecessors

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

There are awards given in recognition of outstanding achievements in academic research.  Variety of awards in the field of medicine or bioscience also exist, but I would count Gairdner Award, Lasker Award, and Nobel Prize as the most distinguished of them.

The Nobel Prize was founded in the dawn of the 20th century, 1901, and is well known throughout the world.  Announcement of the recipients in October every year creates big news that are covered in full by mass media.  It can be said that the list of award winners represent the history and progress of 100 years of science from the end of 19th century throughout the 20th century.  Last year four Japanese (I will leave it to each one of you to ponder on the definition of "Japanese".), Drs. Nanbu, Kobayashi, Masukawa, and Shimomura were awarded this prize in the field of natural science and it was a big topic that allowed us to restore confidence in ourselves.

Lasker Award was founded in 1945. Its main awards are clinical medical research awards and basic medical research awards.  Basic medical research awards were given to Hidesaburo Hanafusa in 1982, Susumu Tonegawa in 1987, Yasutomi Nishizuka in 1989, and Yoshio Masui in 1998.  Clinical medical research award was given to Akira Endo in 2008.  Among those recipients, Dr. Nishizuka and Dr. Endo were the only persons whose work in Japan were recognized as the major basis for the prize.

Gairdner Awards is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year.  This year two scientist from Kyoto University – Shinya Yamanaka and Kazutoshi Mori – won the prize.  Dr. Yamanaka is famous in and out of Japan for his research on “iPS”, but the work of Dr. Mori is also wonderful though it is not as conspicuous.

As you can see from the article in Asahi Shinbun (2009/4/10), the winner of Gairdner Awards in Japan are – besides Tonegawa, Masui, and Nishizuka who are also Lasker Award winners – Kiminari Ishizuka, his spouse Teruko Ishizaka, and Seiji Ogawa.  Dr. Nishizuka and the two (Yamanaka and Mori) of this year are the only people who was awarded basically for their research in Japan.

It looks as though both Lasker Award and Gairdner Award are sensitive about how many Nobel Prize winners will emerge from their award recipients.  There also seems to be subtle difference in criteria of selections so it would be interesting to imagine what kind of arguments have taken place at the occasions.  Especially, a number of discussions appeared in Nature etc. on why Dr. Masui was not included in the 2001 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

The only Japanese Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine is Dr. Tonegawa for the time being, but I look forward to see more winners in the future.

Dr. Seiji Ogawa is the only Japanese appearing on the list of 125 scientists who has contributed to the progress of science in the history of mankind.  The list is in the "in binding" (if you by any chance find this on the web, please let me know…) of July 1st edition of 125th anniversary issues of "Science".  He discovered fMRA theory which is now widely used in the research of human brain functions.

“Todai and Nobel prize” Young people that do not aim for frontier

Posted on by kiyoshi kurokawa

→Japanese

“Global world” and “Education・Human resources” are themes which I frequently come back in my Blog.

In this age of global competition investment by the government to science and technology is important for tackling global issues.  However it is after all each individual who carry the tasks out.

In “Innovation 25”- a report and recommendation that I chaired in its drafting-that was approved by cabinet of Abe administration, we pointed out that for innovation, a “creation of new social values”, the key factor is “human resource” and  “Deru Kui (nails sticking out/out of box)” type people are very important.  Although the report is an official government paper, a casual phrase of “Deru Kui” appears repeatedly in it.

Now, last year, four Japanese scientists won Nobel Prize and this good news was welcomed by everybody.  If you review their CVs, you will notice that they are all apparently so to say “Deru Kuis” or “Out of Box”.

A nice biweekly series titled “GLOBE” started from last October in Asahi Shinbun appearing on every other Mondays.  I wrote a piece under the title of “Why Todai has difficulty in producing Nobel Prize winners (in Japanese only)” in March 18 issue.  Believe it or not, Dr. Koshiba is the only Nobel laureate who is Todai alumnus who also carried out the award winning research at Todai.

Some of the Todai faculty members reading the article might have felt uncomfortable, but what do you think?  To jump into the broad world and compete away from home ground is an important fundamental principle that should be taken seriously.

A new “bud” of talent would not shoot up and grow to be a “big tree” if that precious genius keep hiding in its shelter.  It is such a waste -“Mottainai”.  As the saying goes, “I no nakano kawazu taikai wo shirazu (the frog in the well knows nothing of the great ocean)”. (You may think you know but you don’t.)