Center Test (Nationwide University Entrance Exams) Held in Japan in January

The National Center's University Entrance Exams were held 17-18 January 2009. Just over 540,000 university prospects took the exams, a little more than last year. If anything, it indicates that university enrollment in Japan has crested a peak but has not yet begun to decline (even though drastic decline had been predicted to begin from the year 2007).

It's important to remember that (1) for the universities that participate in the center exam program, admissions are still somewhat competitive (about 1 in 3 exam takers will get a place at the university of their choosing) and (2) in any given year about 20% of the applicant pool is comprised of 'non-students'--that is, 'ronin' who are sitting out from higher education for one or more years in hopes of doing well enough on the entrance exams to get into a prestigious institution. Universities and colleges that use the Center Test typically hold their own entrance exams the following month (in February).

At some high-ranked universities, students who make the 'cut off' on the Center Test scores are then asked to start from 'zero' and compete against all the other people taking a particular university's own exam. Other universities, typically lower-ranked ones, average or otherwise combine the Center Test score with their own exams' scores in order to determine admissions for their institutions and/or specific programs.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090118a4.html

Excerpt from the Kyodo News article found at JT:

>>College entrance exams kick off nationwide
Kyodo News

>>This year, a record 797 schools took part in the annual rite as 20 more schools, including two- and four-year colleges, joined in. The exams are coordinated by the National Center for University Entrance Examinations, an independent administrative agency.

A total of 543,981 students signed up for the tests, up 596 from the previous year, with high school students due to graduate in March accounting for a record 79.3 percent of all applicants.<< href="http://www.dnc.ac.jp/">National Center's own website (the link below is to particular pages with data on this year's test population).

http://www.dnc.ac.jp/center_exam/21exam/shigankaku1.html

For more analysis of the exams and their significance, see this informative Japan Times article:


http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090120i1.html

excerpt:

>>The tough competition used to be known as "examination hell" as applicants crammed with the goal of getting into the best schools to ensure the best career opportunities.

Now that the population is in decline, the competition is changing. Universities are struggling to survive and they need to ensure they enroll enough students to do so.

Following are some facts about the university entrance exams:<<

2008 Shanghai Jiao Tong University ARWU Global Rankings

I have extracted the Japanese universities' entries. The results are very similar to the THES rankings I featured late last year at the JHEO Blog.

http://www.arwu.org/rank2008/EN2008.htm

Shanghai Jiao Tong University
http://www.arwu.org/rank2008/EN2008.htm

Top 100
http://www.arwu.org/rank2008/ARWU2008_A(EN).htm

19 Tokyo Univ Asia/Pac 1 Japan 1 32.2 14.1 43.1 51.9 83.3 35 46.4

23 Kyoto Univ Asia/Pac 2 Japan 2 35.4 33.4 38.6 35.8 70.6 31.5 43.5

68 Osaka Univ Asia/Pac 5 Japan 3 11.2 0 26.3 28.2 63.6 28.7 28.3

79 Tohoku Univ Asia/Pac 7 Japan 4 16.8 0 21.9 23.2 63.9 28.9 27.1

Top 100 Asia Pacific universities
http://www.arwu.org/rank2008/ARWU2008_A(EN).htm

1 Tokyo Univ 19 Japan 1
2 Kyoto Univ 23 Japan 2
5 Osaka Univ 68 Japan 3
7 Tohoku Univ 79 Japan 4
9-16 Kyushu Univ 101-151 Japan 5-7
9-16 Nagoya Univ 101-151 Japan 5-7
9-16 Tokyo Inst Tech 101-151 Japan 5-7
17-22 Hokkaido Univ 152-200 Japan 8-9
17-22 Tsukuba Univ 152-200 Japan 8-9
23-41 Hiroshima Univ 201-302 Japan 10-12
23-41 Keio Univ 201-302 Japan 10-12
23-41 Kobe Univ 201-302 Japan 10-12
42-68 Kanazawa Univ 303-401 Japan 13-18
42-68 Niigata Univ 303-401 Japan 13-18
42-68 Okayama Univ 303-401 Japan 13-18
42-68 Tokyo Med & Dental Univ 303-401 Japan 13-18
42-68 Waseda Univ 303-401 Japan 13-18
42-68 Yamaguchi Univ 303-401 Japan 13-18
69-100 Ehime Univ 402-503 Japan 19-31
69-100 Gifu Univ 402-503 Japan 19-31
69-100 Gunma Univ 402-503 Japan 19-31
69-100 Kagoshima Univ 402-503 Japan 19-31
69-100 Nagasaki Univ 402-503 Japan 19-31
69-100 Nara Inst Sci & Tech 402-503 Japan 19-31
69-100 Nihon Univ 402-503 Japan 19-31
69-100 Osaka City Univ 402-503 Japan 19-31
69-100 Osaka Prefecture Univ 402-503 Japan 19-31
69-100 Tokyo Metropolitan Univ 402-503 Japan 19-31
69-100 Tokyo Univ Agr & Tech 402-503 Japan 19-31

Best Wishes for the New Year

Why English learning in Japan fails (summary so far)

Why English learning in Japan fails (summary so far of reasons 1-7)

This is a proposed ten-part series that the Japan HEO Blog hopes to fulfill by the end of 2008. In 2009 we would like to follow up with a look at some possible solutions to the issues the first series has raised. Before we finish off this series on "Why English learning fails in Japan", though, we would like to recapitulate the series so far. Each issue, from one to seven, is given a very brief summary below and links to the original article as archived at the Japan HEO Blog. Please see the original articles for more details and explanation of each issue.

http://japanheo.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-english-learning-fails-in-japan.html
Reason #1: Japan is linguistically and culturally self-sufficient--so most Japanese do not have a pressing need to learn or use English (English is a FOREIGN language).

http://japanheo.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-english-learning-fails-in-japan_22.html
Reason #2: Japanese is not closely related to English--so it takes longer for beginners to learn how to learn English.

http://japanheo.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-english-learning-fails-in-japan_28.html
Reason #3: Japanese is not written with an alphabet--this makes literacy for EFL a hindrance to learning the language.

http://japanheo.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-english-learning-fails-in-japan.html
Reason #4: Learning to read and write Japanese fluently takes away too much time from the rest of the curriculum, including EFL learning.

http://japanheo.blogspot.com/2008/06/why-english-learning-fails-in-japan.html
Reason #5: Lack of national consensus on foreign language education--most agree change is needed, but it is hard to get agreement on concrete steps.

http://japanheo.blogspot.com/2008/08/why-english-learning-fails-in-japan.html
Reason #6: The situation at universities--negative washback from entrance exams and the preparation for them at the senior highs.

http://japanheo.blogspot.com/2008/08/why-english-learning-fails-in-japan_29.html
Reason #7: The situation at universities--elite academics, non-elite students, mismatch of expectations, poor results with general education studies.

100 Best Lifehack Lists for Recent College Grads

100 Best Lifehack Lists for Recent College Grads

8th of December, 2008

By Laura Milligan

Recent college graduates tend to be anxious and excited about the new adventures that face them, but even the most capable grads can have a hard time adjusting to moving across the country alone, dealing with rejection on the job front, and maintaining a healthy, well-balanced lifestyle after school. To help them out, we've put together 100 lifehack lists that feature countless tips on staying fit, eating right, keeping track of a sensible budget and more.

See entire list of lifehack lists.

New issue of SLEID (free online journal about HE)

Vol. 5, No. 4 (2008) of Studies in Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development has now been published online at http://sleid.cqu.edu.au/viewissue.php?id=18


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Studies in Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development
http://sleid.cqu.edu.au/

OEDb's Online College Rankings 2008

http://oedb.org/rankings

OEDb's Online College Rankings 2008

excerpt/introduction to the rankings:
Online higher education is growing, but a lack of transparency is preventing it from reaching its full potential. Even though online colleges are now receiving increased respect from top employers, diploma mills and the like limit the prestige of a legitimate online degree. We think more transparency is a good thing; a set of objective, quantitative rankings — however imperfect — should help shed some light on the relative attractiveness of the most popular accredited online colleges.

See the list of ranked online institutions at the OEDb website:
http://oedb.org/rankings

Online Education Database (OEDb) and Online Rankings

The future of institutional and program accreditation and certification must encompass specialization, internationalization, and on-line delivery. For example, for better quality in distance learning degrees delivered largely over the internet, students needs better guarantees of the quality and validity of the content in terms of the academic or technical speciality, global standards and effective use of internet-driven communication technologies.

The Online Education Database (OEDb) focuses on accredited institutions and the programs and degrees they offer over the internet. These are mostly American universities and colleges, but at least some are attempting to educate people who do not reside in the US.

The OEDb will be listed at the Japan HEO Blog as a permanent entry under "HE and Japan HE Rankings, Directories, Listings, Databases, Etc." (on the left side of the blog's homepage) and watched for future developments.

http://oedb.org/

Welcome to the Online Education Database. OEDb currently contains reviews of 1,082 programs from 87 accredited online colleges. Unlike other leading online education directories, our database only lists accredited online colleges so that you can be sure that these degrees will be respected by potential employers. Our database allows you to sort reviews by program, college, or degree level. Our library section will educate you on the basics of online universities.

Japan's universities bit hard by global bear

Japan's universities bit hard by global bear

While the US-UK investment bubbles were still percolating, many Japanese universities envied the way American universities invested their endowments in order to gain high returns. So some jumped into the heady world of financial investing and speculation, only to find that 1) it's not as easy as it looks and 2) they bet on a continued bull when the global bear markets emerged with a vengeance.


See these stories:

1.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a3wib3nkyJGg

Japan’s Colleges Had 69 Billion Yen Paper Losses, Yomiuri Says


excerpt:
Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s market turmoil led to 68.8 billion yen ($770 million) in unrealized investment losses at 18 private universities as of March 31 and the amount since then is probably much more, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.

2.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=atSpk1doeHCc

Japan University Official Fired After Swap Losses, Asahi Says


excerpt:
Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s Komazawa University fired a director yesterday after the institution reported a 15.4 billion yen ($172 million) loss from currency-swap trading, the Asahi newspaper reported, without saying where it got the information.


3.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=a_QBl64pCX04&refer=asia

Japan's `Ivy League' Schools Latest Victims of Financial Rout


excerpt:
Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's top universities are falling victim to the global financial crisis that has caused $964.6 billion in writedowns and losses at financial institutions.

100 Free College Rankings (Traditional, Unorthodox and Just Plain Crazy)

100 Free College Rankings (Traditional, Unorthodox and Just Plain Crazy)

This blog offers an alternative and extensive look at how institutions of higher education in the US can be ranked.

Here is hoping for a global version. Imagine knowing which university worldwide has the most beautiful campus?

Excerpt below:

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100 Free College Rankings (Traditional, Unorthodox and Just Plain Crazy)

Posted in College Lifestyle on Nov 24, 2008

By Laura Milligan

When you’re researching colleges, online schools and graduate universities, you’ve got a lot of choices to make. From academics to student-faculty ratios to the most diverse and even most attractive student bodies, which aspect of campus life is most important to you? Before you get too overwhelmed, take a look at our list of 100 different kinds of college rankings, from the traditional to rankings that measure demographics to ones that estimate your chances of striking it rich after graduation. Getting accepted is up to you.

http://www.unixl.com/blog/2008/100-free-college-rankings-traditional-unorthodox-and-just-plain-crazy/