Partially romanized map of Japan

This map courtesy of Kenn Sakurai at Facebook. Fukushima, the prefecture with the troubled reactors has been circled in red. The Kanto megalopolis is south of there. Major quake and tsunami damage starts in Chiba, on the coast and goes northward, taking in coastal, estuarine and even diluvial (up river) Ibaraki, Tochigi, Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, Aomori, as well as coastal SE Hokkaido. Japan HEO is in Fukui, south of Niigata, on the Japan Sea side of Honshu (the other side of Honshu). Radioactivity is polluting the agriculture and waters of Fukushima and surrounding prefectures. It is also drifting south into the Kanto area.

Japan HEO statement about the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disasters in Japan #2

Regardless of all the western media coverage, it is important to remember that the Tokyo/Kanto area was largely spared from earthquake or tsunami damage. The troubled nuclear reactors are in Fukushima Prefecture, well outside the Kanto area. However, it is these damaged nuclear reactors that are threatening to bring an entire country to the edge of collapse.

It seems to me, a non-expert, that they have at least two reactors (out of six reporting major problems after the quake and tsunami) in meltdown (uncontrolled fission) and undergoing 'dirty' fission processes. This means that dumping seawater on them isn't going to cool them (water could actually increase reaction of U-235 because it slows emitted neutrons and helps U-235 to capture them, causing more fission).

It seem that they are simply hoping that the containment underneath holds while they spray sea water on the cores and work to restore power to buildings and pump systems that are largely destroyed and inoperable.

That is to say, they have no other plan that they want to discuss publicly.

If radioactive contamination continues to worsen, at best, they have about a week from today to come out with something that looks like a plan to solve the issues, or they are going to have major panic in the Kanto area, with 35 million people.

Things in Japan are not going well at all.

Charles Jannuzi
Fukui, Japan
http://www.eltinjapan.com 

Japan HEO statement about the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disasters in Japan

This was written one day after the quake (12 March 2011) and sent out to the Dogme ELT group at Yahoo Groups. I am sharing it with Japan HEO readers here. It looks like premonitions about the nuclear reactors are proving unfortunately correct, if understated:

It started with a very long, strong seaquake. It was strong enough in parts of
coastal Japan to cause quake damage. Minutes later the NE coast of Honshu was
hit with huge tsunami waves, which caused flooding. In many places.


Right now I'm watching horrifying images and reading horrifying reports of what
is going on at Fukushima nuclear power plant. They might have serious incidents
at THREE reactors, but one is approaching 'melt down' (a non-technical term for
loss of containment below ground level--they may have already lost containment
above ground). Back up coolant systems failed because diesel generators were
flooded with sea water (design flaw or human execution flaws).


In a way Japan got lucky yesterday because had this quake hit closer to Tokyo,
we would be looking at the collapse of the entire country in terms of it
functioning as a modern, developed political economy.


I wish they had thought more about nuclear reactor design along coasts that have
seaquakes and tsunami, though. That includes where I live, Fukui, which has had
severe quakes and tsunami and has a lot of nuclear power located here, on the
coast.


This is the largest disaster in post-war Japan since the Fukui quake in 1948
(where I live!) and the Kobe-Awaji-Hanshin quake (in 1995). Fukui's quake was so
deadly because post-war construction in 1948 was so shoddy. In 1995 the Kobe
quake was powerful and concentrated in very developed urban areas (but with lots
of old-style wooden houses that burned).


The extent of this disaster could well exceed anything in recent memory in
Japan, but much of that is because it is a country that is over-developed,
over-engineered, and highly dependent on the functioning of a national
government located in Tokyo (and Tokyo has been paralyzed because of loss of
electric power, leading to loss of transport and some communications). I doubt
that it will come anywhere near approaching the human tolls we saw in recent
quakes in S. Asia (such as the tsunami disaster there) or the quake in S. China
(hundreds of thousands dead in that quake!) or the floods in Myanmar.
With one proviso: that is, if they can deal with the nuclear disasters that are
unfolding. These could be catastrophic for the entire Pacific region.


So Japan got lucky yesterday, believe it or not. Just hope the luck holds with
the nuclear disasters (and it's looking very scary right now).


Charles Jannuzi
University of Fukui
Fukui, Japan

Japan universities rocked by cheating scandal

But it's not quite what you would expect. It's not a case of students at the universities cheating on exams or term papers. Instead it's high-tech cheating at the institutions' entrance exams. The test taker allegedly took photos of test questions, posted them to a 'help' site run by Yahoo Japan, got answers and used them to complete the test. All under the supposedly watchful eye of invigilation.

I would argue, though, that the universities involved (e.g., Kyoto University) have no one but themselves to blame. They run their own exams in order to make lots of money because they accept applications from far more people than they could possibly admit as students. Lower-ranked universities scramble to get enough students to enroll while these elite universities (both public and private) profit from testing huge numbers and turning most of them away. And then they are too cheap to provide proper invigilation.


Here is a link to a Japan Times article, with excerpt following the link.



http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110306b1.html


excerpt of Japan Times (Kyodo News) article:


Sunday, March 6, 2011


Alleged cheat handed to prosecutors


KYOTO (Kyodo) Police handed a 19-year-old preparatory school student over to prosecutors Saturday for allegedly "disrupting" a university entrance exam last week by using a cell phone to solicit answers online during the test.


The Sendai prep school student, whose name is being withheld because he is a minor, is suspected of cheating by posting questions from Kyoto University's entrance exam on an online help site and using the answers that were provided.


According to the Kyoto Prefectural Police, the student said he entered text from the exam questions into his mobile phone with his left hand during the math and English tests for Kyoto University on Feb. 25 and 26.


The police believe he then wrote down the responses posted by other Internet users on Yahoo Japan's Chiebukuro (Pearls of Wisdom) question-and-answer service with his right hand, they said.


The student also admitted cheating in a similar way on the exams for Waseda, Doshisha and Rikkyo universities earlier the same month, they said.

Troubling trend: fewer and fewer Japanese studying overseas

Background: January 2011 brings a spate of online articles on Japan and higher education, Japan and English. One negative trend that has become apparent is that fewer and fewer Japanese university students are going abroad to study, especially to Anglophone countries, most especially the US. 

Many Japanese educators and policymakers, if asked, will say that English is the most important second or foreign language for their students to study because it is supposed to be the language of global communications and business. However, it is often hard to see that sort of agreement in terms of the actual workaday policies and curriculim here, where EFL will almost always take a 'back seat' to other concerns.

On the other hand, thanks in part to the influence of Confucius Institutes and cultural affinities between Japan and China due to historic links, more and more young Japanese are studying and staying in China. 

Also, even as more and more students come to Japan to study its language and culture, it is getting more and more difficult to get Japanese students to try a stint overseas, with perhaps the most notable trend being an irreversible slide in the popularity of the US as a study destination.

Here is a short list of online news articles that cover the trend:

 
1. More Students Choose Universities in Japan

excerpt:


More students than ever are choosing universities in Japan for study abroad, and the number of Japanese students leaving the country to study has fallen markedly since a peak in 2004....The Japan Student Services Organization...reported that the number of foreign students studying in Japan reached record highs of 141,774 in 2010....Meanwhile, data released by the Japanese Ministry of Education...indicate that the number of Japanese students studying abroad has been declining since a peak of 82,945 in 2004. In the most recent figures, from 2008, the number of students was under 67,000, down 11 percent from the previous year.

2. Universities in U.S. giving up on Japan / Japanese kids would rather stay home

excerpt:

More and more U.S. universities are apparently giving up on Japan as a target for recruiting students, as a survey showed that the number of U.S. universities taking part in publicity events in Japan has sharply dropped in recent years....One major factor behind the decrease [in the number of Japanese students studying in the US] is that it has become easier for students to enter Japanese universities due to the nation's chronically low birthrate. Students also consider studying abroad to be disadvantageous in terms of job hunting, which usually begins in earnest during their junior year.

3. Japan far behind in global language of business

excerpt:

With the economy expected to shrink due to the low birthrate, Japan has no choice but to seek markets outside the country, which will mean working more with non-Japanese, experts say. For a country without much in the way of natural resources, manpower will be key to future survival. Japan, however, appears to be falling behind its neighbors in nurturing personnel who can compete in a globalizing world....According to an education ministry report released in December, the number of Japanese heading overseas to study fell in every one of the four years to 2008, dropping from 82,945 in 2004 to 66,833 in that period. The decline is especially sharp in the number of Japanese studying in the United States, falling from 46,497 in 2000 to 24,842 in 2009, according to data from the Institute of International Education. By contrast, Chinese students in the U.S. more than doubled from 59,939 in 2000 to 127,628 in 2009. As for South Korean students, the number grew from 45,685 in 2000 to 72,153 in 2009.

4. Language teachers to go to U.S. for exchanges

excerpt:

Japan will beef up people-to-people exchanges with the United States this year by dispatching young teachers of the Japanese language and English to the country, government officials said Friday. Tokyo will launch new programs to send those teachers in the fiscal year starting in April amid concerns that bilateral ties could weaken with declines in the number of Japanese students enrolled at U.S. universities and cuts in the Japanese budget for a project to invite American and other foreign university graduates to teach English at Japanese schools. The government has earmarked ¥500 million in the fiscal 2011 budget to send 100 Japanese teachers of the English language aged 40 or younger to U.S. universities to learn English teaching methods for six months, the officials said.

Elite private Keio University drops National Center Test requirement for admissions

Background: this decision must come as an unpleasant surprise to the National Center for University Entrance Examinations (NCUEE), since the trend had been for more and more private universities to use the unified entrance exam that the NCUEE administers. However, it's probably more lucrative for Keio to require only its in-house entrance exams. First, there will be no revenue sharing with other entities. Second, it might make it easier and cheaper for an ever larger number of high school seniors and cram school attendees to apply for Keio, even if only a small number will gain admission. Look at it the way a potential applicant might: if enrollment to Keio is the dream, it will allow them to concentrate without the distraction or expense of the National Center Test to worry about.    

The Yomiuri story is at the link below:

Keio Univ. to stop using standardized entrance exam

Key excerpt 1:


Starting next year, Keio University will no longer use the National Center Test, a unified college entrance exam, to screen those seeking admission to the prestigious private university....Keio's move is expected to spur other universities to take similar steps, finding their own ways to screen examinees....Center test organizers said they were shocked to hear of Keio's withdrawal.



Key excerpt 2:

"We'll give an original, distinctive test to enroll smart students," said a Keio faculty member.
A member of a cram school staff said, "The National Center Test only reveals slight differences in abilities among examinees who apply for top-notch universities."

Univ. groups to call for firms to delay start of recruitment in Japan

Read the full story at the link below:

Univ. groups to call for firms to delay start of recruitment+

Students feel heat of joblessness (from The Japan Times Online)

Here is a Japan Times article on the same topic--the awful employment outlook for university graduates in Japan.

Students feel heat of joblessness | The Japan Times Online

Record low 68.8% graduating university students receive job offers+

Some background to this story: Universities and their faculties, departments and programs fret a lot about this statistic. That is because young people who plan to attend university will flock to institutions and majors that can boast success in helping to get their students jobs when they graduate. Perhaps more students need to look closer at the stats the universities publish. For example, are their students really getting jobs that are relevant to their areas of study? This year looks to be another dismal year for job prospects, and Japanese companies seem to be getting used to making university students jump through all sorts of hoops in the recruitment process. Educators fear that recruitment is starting too early, way before the final term of the fourth or final year of study, and this is disrupting the learning and opportunities for educational experiences.


Read the article at the link below:


Record low 68.8% graduating university students receive job offers+

Japan's Ministry of Education launches/renews two programs to revive HE and internationalization

Japan's Ministry of Education (MEXT) launches/renews two programs to revive HE and internationalization

Combined the projects are supposed to help revive and promote inter-university exchange between Japan's designated universities and key institutions overseas, most likely in the US. A key aspect is supposed to help fund 300,000 Japanese students to go abroad while bringing a matching 300,000 foreign students to Japan. While well over 140,000 foreign students come to Japan, Japan's number of students going abroad is well below 70,000 and continues to decline. 

The government's focus is on 13 elite universities (and remember the original plan had been to fund 30 such institutions) that had previously qualified for funding, so this appears to be more of a re-branding than anything.

Read more at the links:

Launching New Project for Promoting Universities’ Activity in Implementing Internationalization as well as exchange with Asia and the United States

Promoting Universities' Activity with Asia and the United States, etc.

Promoting Two-Way Student Exchange

excerpt:

○ The New Growth Stragety (Cabinet Decision) has decided to send 300,000 Japanese students and workers abroad as well as accept 300,000 talented studensts from overseas into Japan for studying and training.
○ It is necessary to actively support sending Japanese studentsabroad as well as accepting international students.