Universities step up efforts to attract foreign students

Japanese universities are adopting a more proactive approach to attracting foreign students, including the expansion of disciplines taught in English. The measures are both a financial survival strategy for higher education institutions and a response to government policy aimed at growing global talent.

While many universities are no longer as complacent as they used to be about attracting foreign students, experts say new measures must also include improved pathways for foreign students to eventually move into top positions at Japanese universities.

They should also showcase Japan as a safe place that can protect foreign students from authoritarian regimes.

The flurry of new initiatives announced since COVID to attract foreign students include the establishment of specific schools offering English medium-only programmes, the easing of visa regulations for foreign students, and plans to shift admissions to the fall in line with academic calendars in Europe and the United States. Japanese universities have traditionally started the academic year in April.

Hirofumi Yoshimura, governor of Osaka Prefecture, in February announced a decision to abolish spring admissions and make English the official language on university campuses to attract more foreign students, although no formal timetable for these plans was announced.

Osaka Metropolitan University announced it would also extend the fall admission to its graduate schools beginning with the School of Engineering from 2027.

In February the University of Tokyo, Japan’s top national university, announced it would open a new College of Design in the fall of 2027, offering a five-year English-taught curriculum that is a fusion of arts and natural sciences.

The objective, according to its website, is to achieve an intake of 30% foreign undergraduate students and 40% graduate students – a target made easier with the change to fall admissions. It plans to enrol around 100 students annually.

Kwansei Gakuin University, a private university focusing on the liberal arts, announced a new campus in Oji Park located in Kobe city, western Japan, which will teach only in English.

It plans to enrol students from 2029 and aims to increase the number of international students to 20% from 3% of its planned 4,000-strong student body, according to Takuji Minorikawa, an official in the university’s internationalisation department.

“Our Oji campus will attract more English-language applicants as the courses will be in mostly that language. Our appeal is the new college will be a network of city government, academia and private companies,” he told University World News, noting that study will not be restricted to the classroom.

Programmes at the new campus will be project-based, focusing on solutions to global and local problems, and will emphasise an interdisciplinary approach between the humanities, science and engineering.

Other priorities will be strengthening a support system to increase jobs for foreign students, said Minorikawa.

Currently, almost 90% of foreign students at Kwansei are Chinese and South Korean nationals proficient in Chinese characters used in writing Japanese, Minorikawa pointed out.

Staying on after graduation

Professor Mianxiong Dong, vice-president of the Muroran Institute of Technology in Hokkaido, said the university has a goal to double its overseas student ratio to 10% of its total student body.

“The objective includes raising the quality of our research through international experience and fostering an open mindset in our Japanese students with exposure to diverse cultures,” he told University World News.

Dong, a professor in the Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, is a graduate of the University of Aizu in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture. He sees himself as a ‘beneficiary’ of the internationalisation of Japanese higher education.

Originally from Shanghai in China, Dong is an expert in informatics and engineering. He became assistant professor at Muroran in 2014 and rose to his new position in 2020.

“It was a rare move [to become vice-president] at that time in a Japanese national university when foreigners with management titles were limited,” he pointed out.

In 2021 he was awarded the Ministry of Education’s Young Scientists’ Award in recognition of his excellent research in next-generation disaster management communication, using a drone-based system to aid rapid recovery during disasters when mobile phones cannot be used.

“After graduation I decided to stay in Japan to continue my research. The path has been successful,” he added. “I am firmly behind globalising our campus and don’t see huge challenges but only benefits to the university.”

Currently, about 40% of international graduates – the majority from Japanese language and vocational schools – stay in the country.

Last September, Japan announced a new visa category – technology, humanities and international affairs’ residence – for foreign graduates of Japanese universities and specialised colleges. The measure is aimed to ease their transition into the domestic workforce.

Japan has just 6% of international students in higher education compared to over 22% in the United Kingdom, a figure that the government is aiming to change. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida set a goal of 400,000 foreign students to be reached by 2033.

But competition is increasing from universities worldwide to attract the best foreign students, and the realisation is growing in Japan that universities need to be more proactive in attracting students.

Data released in April by the Japan Student Services Organisation (JASSO) indicated more than 100,000 of 270,000 foreign students in Japan were enrolled in Japanese language schools, a category that includes vocational colleges, and in which student numbers are increasing at an average rate of 20% annually.

This is expected to lead to longer-term growth of the wider international student population as many students enter higher education after graduating from Japanese language courses.

Protecting students

However, attracting international students raises new issues, some of which are a result of geopolitical tensions. There may also be a need to protect foreign students who may be monitored by authoritarian regimes back home.

A key characteristic of Japan’s internationalisation is that Chinese students comprise the majority – almost 50% – of foreign students.

China was the top source country of international students in Japan in 2023, according to JASSO statistics released in May. It sent 115,493 students to Japan – an 11% increase from the previous year when 103,882 Chinese students enrolled in Japanese higher education institutions.

“More Chinese graduates are opting to return home rather than find employment in Japan, which was the norm before. The reverse trend is pressing universities to develop strategies to expand their appeal to other nationalities and also to retain foreign students,” Toshiyuki Sawatani, a part-time professor teaching university organisation and management in the Institute of Business and Accounting at Kwansei Gakuin University in Nishinomiya, told University World News recently.

Measures to retain students beyond graduation, and to have them, for example, enrol in research degrees, could include assurances that Japan is willing to protect foreign students, according to some academics.

Tomoko Ako, a professor of Chinese studies at University of Tokyo, points to an urgent need to develop policies to protect freedom of expression in higher education and which target foreign students.

She said her graduate students, mostly from China and Hong Kong, are afraid to voice opinions publicly or publish their research, for fear of possible censure from Beijing.

“My Chinese students express their fears privately about reports of arrests and intimidation against Chinese students and faculty abroad,” she told University World News, adding that despite bringing up this issue with the university management, officials have not yet pledged solid action to protect students.

“There is a wait-and-see attitude in management and that is troubling,” she noted.

The issue, however, is gaining momentum among universities. A recent case that shook the Japanese academic community was the sentencing by Beijing on 24 May of Professor Yuan Keqin to six years in prison on charges of espionage.

Yuan taught Chinese history at Hokkaido University for Education for almost two decades and was on home leave when he was arrested in 2019.

Assistant professor Izumi Takeda from the education faculty at the same university, started a support campaign with a group of other five academics to campaign for Yuan’s release since his detention in May 2019. “Our activities are individual-based and not affiliated with a university,” Takeda said.

The group issued an emergency appeal in May for the immediate release of Yuan, whom they insist has been arrested under false charges.