Distinctive Features of Japanese Higher Education in its Massification and Some Management Strategies of Private Universities and Colleges

1992 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 02301044
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Co-operative Research (A)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Educaion
• Research Institution: National Institute For Educational Research (NIER)
• Principal Investigator: ICHIKAWA Shogo NIER, Educational Policies, Director, 教育政策研究部, 部長 (00000050)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): TANAKA Masahumi NIER, Lifelong Learning, Senior Researcher, 生涯学習研究部, 主任研究官 (10217078) ; YASHIKI Kazuyoshi NIER, Educational Policies, Senior Researcher, 教育政策研究部, 主任研究官 (70150026) ; TSUKAHARA Shuuichi NIER, Educational Policies, Chief, 教育政策研究部, 室長 (00155334) ; YUUKI Makoto NIER, Educational Policies, Chief, 教育政策研究部, 室長 (20033574) ; ARAI Katsuhiro NIER, Educational Policies, Chief, 教育政策研究部, 室長 (90133610)
• Project Period (FY): 1990 – 1992
• Keywords: higher education / private sector / massification of higher education / popular higher education / school corporation

Research Abstract

The recent steady increase and spread of higher education in Japan has been urging universities and colleges to cope with difficulties in their massification. Despite this present situation, university studies still tend to focus their main attention on academic achievement or manpower policies, preoccupied with the idea that a university is "a seat of learning". There are some performances which have treated questions concerning the massification, but most of them only examine problems that have confronted reputable universities for the elite, especially prestigious national public ones.
In contrast to such earlier studies, the present study has attempted to take an innovative approach to the questions of popular higher education, based upon the following views. For one thing, most issues of higher education today relate to education for ordinary people as well as to academic research. For another thing, the private sector in which nearly 80 percent of students are enrolled has played the major role in massification of Japanese higher education. Therefore, the structure of massification in Japan might be different from that in other countries, even though Japanese universities have not been able to avoid following the precedent created by the U.S. counterparts. In addition, it is also doubtful whether they have some similarities to those in other Asian countries in massification.
The tasks that we initially set before us are as follows: a) To clarify the mechanism of privatized expansion in higher education; b) To discuss how university massification affects the entire system of higher education; c) To research into problems of teaching and management in popular higher education, and into efforts made by individual universities and colleges who have been tackling them; d) To explore distinctive features of Japanese higher education in its massification in comparison with overseas higher education, specifically with the cases in the United States and other Asian countries.
The output of our research has released in the report entitled Distinctive Features of Japanese Higher Education in its Massification and Some Management Strategies of Private Universities and Colleges which was published in March, 1993. This report describes characteristics of Japanese higher education in its massification, which have proved to be different from American model or Asian cases, in the hope that the readers may realize that the situation has been changing from that in the 1960s when university massification emerged, held researchers' interests, and gave rise to discussion.