70% of universities oppose government plan – Survey

Over 70% of Japan’s national universities are opposed to the central government's requirements of hiring more outside directors and instructors with practical experience in order to be eligible for the system to make higher education free of charge, reports The Mainichi.

According to a questionnaire sent by the Mainichi Shimbun, those universities that agreed with the policy only made up 10% of the respondents. While national universities became corporate organisations from the 2004 academic year, the results bring to the forefront the spread of the pushback against the government's interference in the academic world in the name of so-called equal opportunity in education.

The plan to make higher education free of charge was approved by the cabinet in December 2017 as part of the ‘New Economic Policy Package’, and would see the government shouldering university and vocational school matriculation and tuition fees of children from low-income households excluded from prefectural and local residential taxes. The law is planned to go into effect from the 2020 academic year.
Full report on The Mainichi site