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In Japan, promotion of university-industry collaboration has been a key topic at many levels since the early 90’s, and especially since 2004 when all the former national universities became semi-privatized.

With this drastic reform in Japanese higher education in 2004, Japanese former national universities need to be transformed into a new mode of knowledge creation. With the increased autonomy in each university, now it is much easier for individual universities to seek cooperation with industry. Indeed, it is said that this reform was first proposed to make this collaboration easy (Prior to the privatization, professors at national university were civil servants and thus were not allowed to work elsewhere).

In the industrialized countries, technical innovation has become the main force for competitiveness. This results in a much stronger participation of industry in research and development (R & D). In industrialized countries, the participation of universities in R & D projects for industry has become key activity. Though in Japan, this trend is also apparent with 67% of research being financed by big companies, traditionally most of these universities have been the private ones.

Now under new regulations, newly privatized former national universities have a freedom to participate in this university-industry cooperation. Not only does university-industry cooperation will lead to a creation of knowledge-based society, this strategy could result in a win-win situation for both stakeholders, university and industry.

First, Japanese national universities can now target research and education to actual needs of the society which will strengthens the position of the university in the society and bring financial benefits. Also, they can mitigate their newly added financial constraint from not receiving subsidy from the Ministry of Education. Through university-industry collaboration, universities can use companies’ resources and expertise which may be up-to-date than those found in their universities.

And last but not least, universities can finally develop skills and resources for transferring research results to end users. Traditionally, knowledge generated in universities tended to just sit in an ivory tower without being utilized in a real world. Through university-industry collaboration, universities can learn the strategy to convey their newly generated knowledge to the society.

There are many benefits for industry as well.  First and foremost, they can obtain top-notch information on recent developments in science and technology.  Having direct access to research results will enable industry to develop more competitive products and services.

Sounds wonderful, right?  Yep, this university-industry collaboration seems as though it could be a panacea for everyone and everything.  It is actually a pretty good deal.

But! (and there is always “but”)  there are a few things that we might want to be careful and keep in our mind when promoting this strategy. 

I will talk about those points tomorrow… 

I have been reading this book titled “Highly-Educated Working Poor - Graduate School as a Manufacturer of Part-timers ” (written in Japanese).  Sounds pessimistic?  Yep, this is a very pessimistic book, indeed.

Pessimistic it may be, the book conveys the critical truth about post PhD lives in my country.  In Japan, a lot of new graduate schools were established around the time all the national university became semi-privatized in 2004.  It was a part of the government policy along with the privatization to increase the number of graduate schools.  Consequently, there have been more and more graduates with higher degrees.  However, the author of the book claims that the society is not ready to utilize so many MAs, MSs, and especially PhDs. 

This book also reminded me of a website called “A Village of One-hundred Doctors” that I recently came across (also in Japanese).  According to this website:

Of 100 new Doctors,

16 are MDs (medical doctors)

14 become professors

20 become post doctoral fellows (postdocs)

8 become company workers

11 become civil service employees

7 completely changes their areas of specialization

16 are unemployed

And the rest 8 go MISSING!!!

Is this depressing or what?!  Oh this is not a world average - this is a Japanese case, if that makes you non-Japanese people feel better. 

OK, enough of this bleak story.  I will write something more positive tomorrow, I promise. 

World Competitiveness. For the first entry of my guest-blogging, this topic would not be too bad, I suppose.

Thus, World Competitiveness.

According to World Competitive Yearbook 2007 by IMD (International Institute for Management Development), Japan is now ranked in the 24th place, sliding out of the top twenty. Allowing China to pass (China rose from 18 to 15), Japan has moved down eight spots, from the 16th in 2006. In fact, Japan is now surpassed by many of it’s neighboring countries, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and even Malaysia (See the below ranking for details). Though there is a debate over if China truly deserves to be ranked so high, let’s put away that debate for the moment and I would like to think why Japan has fallen dramatically.

One IMD research fellow points out why Japan is slipping, noting some of the factors that I have also pondered many times in the past when thinking about my own country’s higher education system. As she puts it:

[...] Entrepreneurship is not widespread (ranking 57th out of 61 countries), business managers are not characterized as having much international experience (52nd) and there is a low participation of women in business (47th). [...] Other obstacles to global integration include a national culture that is closed to foreign ideas (54th) and strict immigration laws (55th), despite the fact that Japan ranks higher for its “attitude towards globalization” (14th).

It has also been pointed out that this low ranking is caused by the serious descrepancies between the skills companies need and the skills Japanese university provides to students.

What does this mean?

To me, it means that the higher education system needs to focus on producing a new type of college graduate: someone who is ready for the globalized economy of the 21st century, someone who can think independently and able to function in the international market, and someone who has great creative mind as well as entrepreneurship.

Yes yes, these points have been discussed for many years by now, but nothing has changed so far, as Japan’s competitiveness ranking keeps dropping down.

I am unwilling to admit, but it looks as though it will take some time before Japan starts climbing back up the rankings… *sigh*

IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2007 (top 30)

1. U.S.A, 2. Singapore, 3. Hong Kong, 4.Luxembourg, 5. Denmark, 6. Switzeland, 7. Iceland, 8. Netherlands, 9. Sweden, 10. Canada, 11. Austria, 12. Australia, 13. Norway, 14. Ireland, 15. Mainland China, 16. Germany, 17. Finland, 18. Taiwan, 19. New Zealand, 20. United Kingdom, 21. Israel, 22. Estonia, 23. Malaysia, 24. Japan, 25. Belgium, 26. Chile, 27. India, 28. France, 29. Korea, 30. Spain.

(Source: http://www.imd.ch/research/publications/wcy/announcing.cfm)

Ai Takeuchi recently completed her doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration. Her research interests focus on international development with a special interest in gender issues and international study and training. In her study, Dr. Takeuchi explored the issues related to post study-abroad for Asian women.

She has lived and worked in multiple countries, including Thailand, the U.S.A., and her native country, Japan. Her work experiences include both governmental and non-governmental organizations, mainly in the fields of international aid and development.

The following is a brief excerpt from an article in the Orlando Sentinel regarding a study of Florida Virtual School.

The article is referring to a recent report by Florida TaxWatch Center for Educational Performance and Accountability. 

While the results of this study, not surprisingly, focus on student outcomes with regard to economic efficiency, it is striking to note the remarkable lack of such words as “innovation” within the study.  While the study’s focus is efficiency, it seems like another example of traditional structures being replicated in an online world. 

I shudder to think.  This notion came to mind as I watched this video, Do Schools Kill Creativity,  delivered by Sir Ken Robinson at a TED Conference in Monterey, CA. where he again raises the concern that our educational system is about the business of educating people out of their creativity.   Over the years, I’ve inspired many a catatonic state as I slogged through the cannon of American Literature with the ferocity of conviction of Jonathan Edwards.  

 “Students in the Hands of a Zealous Teacher.” 

Aye, but there’s the rub.  On the one hand, educators are accountable to bureaucratic reporting structures that demand accountability to standards that are not about building creative capital, while that is precisely what we all need as we manage change and create the future.  This tension bespeaks the need for leapfrogging.

Sometime ago, I had heard Thomas Friedman suggest that we often have 21st Century students and 20th Century teachers.  I felt indicted by this statement and hope that on my better days, that might actually be true.

I taught for years in an urban setting, teaching for St. Paul Public Schools, and I began to question the relevance of what I brought to the classroom and the manner in which I delivered it.  It caused me to reflect on my own education, training, and experience in a world where change is accelerating at ever-increasing rates.  It caused me to begin asking what we must do to address an educational system that is clearly “preparing” students for a world that no longer exists.  It caused me to ask, how might we prepare students for a world and workforce that doesn’t yet exist.

That brings me to my current role/s.  I am exploring these questions in both my academic life and in my work life.  It is an arena where theory and practice meet and often collide.  It is an arena in which I continue to evolve and ask the question: what does education need to look like for the 21st Century and beyond?

I have recently accepted the role as Curriculum Director for BlueSky Online Charter School, Minnesota’s first fully online public high school.  That said, it is often easy to be lulled into sense of complacency, thinking that simply being an online school is innovative in and of itself.  Simply delivering traditional curriculum in an online environment is not enough. 

For academics and the theorists, these questions are anything but new, and for the NCLB-strapped practioners, day to day survival often dictates something other, and the chasm between theory and practice is often substantial. So over the next few days, I will be musing about how we not only bridge that chasm, but leapfrog into the 21st Century. 

I thought I would share some of the great ICT4D resources. Happy reading!

• International Journal of Education and Development using Communication Technology. An e-journal focusing on both research and practice in ICT, education, and technology.
• Information Technologies and International Development. An e-journal focusing on the intersection of ICT and international development.
• ICT for Development Platform. Brings together ICT4D specialists, best practices, innovations, and experiences. Check out the Connecting People for a Better World book!
• UNDP ICT4D. The United Nations website for ICT4D resources.
• ICTlogy. A blog dedicated to ICT4D issues.

While doing research with Dr. Edward Brantmeier, I ran across this interesting information from Cole and Crawford (2007) in an article called “Building peace through information and communication technologies.” The table below details some of the authors’ main points.

This weekend I am preparing my presentation for the 2007 MidWest Comparative and International Education Conference in Chicago, Illinois. I will be presenting part of a book chapter Dr. Edward Brantmeier at Colorado State University and I recently wrote. The presentation and book chapter focus on how technology can be used to promote peace and reconciliation. The amazing thing about this conference is that that although it is only a regional conference, the diversity of topics and expertise is amazing. See the program for more details! If you are in the Windy City area November 2nd and 3rd, maybe you should plan a side trip to Loyola University and join the conference…