ブックタイトルa-history-of-international-exchanges00

概要

a-history-of-international-exchanges00

173An AfterwordHirase KiyoshiFormer Chairman of Student Exchange CommitteeFaculty of Education and Culture, Miyazaki UniversityRecently the internationalization of universities has been widely endorsed.In 2008, the Ministry of Education announced a policy of ‘Acceptance of300,000 foreign students by the year 2020.’ In this policy, we can find twocharacteristics of internationalization in Japan: more emphasis on thequantity rather than the specially attributes of foreign students; and moreemphasis on accepting foreign students rather than sending Japanesestudents out to other countries. Japanese universities will try to accept asmany foreign students as possible from other countries. I wonder if thisattitude toward internationalization is right.Guy Butterworth, who arrived at MU in October 1974, made every effortto encourage English Department students of MU to spend a certain periodof time at a university in English-speaking countries. He wanted them notonly to improve their English abilities, but also to broaden their outlook.First, he suggested sending an English Department student of MU to auniversity suitable for the student, then an exchange agreement wasconcluded, and finally, a mutual exchange of students started under theagreement. In 1987, we started student exchange programs with TESC inUSA and DCE in New Zealand. It was true that we were encouraged by thetailwind of social change, where there was a marked increase in the numberof the young people who wanted to learn the Japanese language, thanks tothe extraordinary economic development of Japan.Until the middle of the 1970s, only a few international exchanges had beeninitiated mainly in the Faculties of Agriculture and Technology of MUthrough personal connections of MU professors with those educators in othercountries. Fewer than 20 foreign students were studying at MU in 1988,when the faculties moved onto Kibana campus. Two foreign students fromTESC and DCE were exchange students under the agreement. Otherforeign students were graduate students from Germany, Syria, thePhilippines, Taiwan, China, and Thailand who came to MU through thepersonal connections of MU professors. They came to MU to study the mostadvanced research methods of a particular field in agriculture and technology