Technology will create higher education’s future – IAUP

The development of innovation and technology in higher education to meet the world’s rapidly changing needs emerged as the main focus of higher education leaders who gathered in Japan’s port city of Yokohama for the conference of the International Association of University Presidents, or IAUP.

The theme of the conference was “Creating the Future of Higher Education”, and university presidents have been looking at how universities around the world can collaborate to adapt to an environment that is being transformed by technology and globalisation.

More than 400 delegates and guests from 38 countries attended the three-day meeting.

IAUP president-elect Toyoshi Satow, chancellor of JF Oberlin University in Tokyo, said in his keynote address that the world’s seismic changes – including changing demographics, pressure on the environment from climate change, the emergence of new technologies and the new balance of powers between countries – formed the backdrop for serious debate set against the gleaming ocean-front in Yokohama.

“Technology changes are the key to make higher education effective and support sustainable economic development,” he said.

Universities also needed to be more responsive to students, and needed to prepare them for the world, he added.

Professor Akira Ninomiya, president of Hijiyama University in Hiroshima, who chaired the session on the future of higher education, summed it up by explaining that his graduates are now asked during recruitment interviews to outline their ideas for contributing to the company’s development in the future.

“Higher education is all about imagination and sharing. This is the core of education we can impart to young people,” he told University World News.

Future human capital

The conference also examined the role of universities in creating human capital for the future. Edward Guiliano, president of the New York Institute of Technology, said “jobs was a nasty word in traditional education but now higher education must create in students an awareness of the opportunities in the world”.

Lee Eun-Joo, vice-president of Seoul Cyber University in South Korea, said the university focuses on online education, which is “very popular with students who want jobs. Being computer savvy gives them an advantage in the tough career 'competition world’.”

The university has 12,000 students including those studying mid-career.

Nobuyuki Idei, former head of Sony Corporation, the Japanese company that made remarkable inroads into international markets with its renowned innovative and quality products, pointed to a wired population in the internet era which is increasingly seeking individuality and new visions for the future.

“The changing world has made Japan painfully aware of the need to reform, and a top priority for the country is to nurture an open innovative society. In facing this challenge businesses are working together to promote revolutionary functions and applications. The role of universities in this collaboration is the way to go,” he told the audience.

He was referring to the latest technologoical innovations such as humanoid robots and linear technology now being tested on Japanese trains that have been jointly developed by private companies and universities.

Idei, who was head of Sony for a decade until 2005, founded Quantum Leaps Corporation three years ago. The foundation acts as an incubator for new start-ups around the world.

Delegates at the conference also pointed out that a wealthier world would see a massive rise in the number of young people demanding a university education, especially from India and China.

Another challenge for the future of higher education was the urgent need to develop new economic models against dwindling national public budgets, as observed by David Malone, rector of the United Nations University in Japan.

Japan has launched an energetic policy to crank up the internationalisation of its higher education. The Vice-Minister for Education Shinichi Yamanaka said in his address that the government had pledged state funds to top universities that would be generously used to increase overseas faculty and students in the country and also to support Japanese students to study abroad.