KOSEN’s Role in Promoting Tri-Institutional Collaborative/Cooperative Educational Reformation Project

Abstract

The Japanese government has been strongly promoting the globalization of policies in the field of education. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology developed some implementation plans to accomplish this ambitious objective. The 'English Education Reform Plan Corresponding to Globalization' targets elementary and lower/upper secondary schools, while the 'National University Reform Plan' targets institutions of higher education: Japan’s colleges and universities. The 'Tri-Institutional Collaborative/Cooperative Educational Reformation Project', represented by Nagaoka University of Technology and Toyohashi University of Technology (TUT), was adopted as a relevant project. The National Institute of Technology are also related to this project. Japanese faculty participating in this project are receiving tutoring in English language skills by means of an English special course offered at TUT in Japan and an English Language Institute course at Queens College in the United States. We are also learning about best practices in higher education with a special focus on teaching diverse students in a non-native language. The mandatory expansion of English instruction, through the adoption of specialized subjects to be taught in English, in both universities and National Institute of Technology is a process to be addressed seriously. This report first described this program and then attempted to predict the future trend at KOSEN using evidence from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and both universities