A lecture and a panel discussion on globalization in Japanese universities was held by the Embassy of Japan and the Japan Foundation on 16 November in the Japan Foundation London office. Firstly, Professor Naoyuki Agawa, Vice President of Keio University, gave a keynote speech about "Waiting for a Moment to Arise - Japanese Youth and Universities in Global Society". Secondly, a panel discussion was presented by Professor Agawa, Professor Junko Hibiya, President of International Christian University and Professor Yiu, Vice President for Academic Exchange of Sophia University.
Mr.Jason James, Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation moderated the panel discussion about "Globalization in Japanese Universities - Common Themes and Varied Approaches"and brought up various topics in the globalization of the educational environment for each university. The panelists discuss the challenge for enhancing the contents of the English-taught classes along with keeping the level of language. They also talked about the need for practicing the interactive style of teaching with a small size class. In the venue, there were a lot of students and instructors engaging in Japanese studies and Japanese language education and there were active exchanges of opinions among the audiences and the panelists.
Finally, they shared the views that just offering courses in English is not enough to globalize Japanese universities, but the important things is being competitive in the world. It could be also necessary for Japanese universities to offer reasonable tuition setting and to expand scholarships system. Each university could provide programs in which they take advantage of its strengths. They concluded that it would be meaningful for people interested in the East Asian studies as well as Japanese studies to to do researches and studies in Japan.
