Japan’s top school uses English to lure Asians

Tokyo University adds all-English graduate course to compete against US schools

TOKYO: The University of Tokyo, considered Japan’s most prestigious seat of learning, said on Sunday that it will teach a graduate programme entirely in English in a bid to lure future policymakers away from US schools.

The university will launch classes in October for degrees in “social information studies,” which looks at the role of the Internet, cellphones and other communications in society. The programme will each year admit 15 students for master’s degrees and eight for PhDs, aimed at students from other Asian countries who plan to work in public policy, diplomacy and journalism.

It will be the University of Tokyo’s first English-only programme in the humanities, although English has been the medium used to teach various science courses. Japan last year launched the “Asian Gateway Initiative” to increase the clout of Asia’s largest economy by boosting airline routes and encouraging more foreign students to study here. But a majority of Asian students learning overseas pick the United States. The university said it will promote itself as giving a more Asian perspective.

“Students can gain a better understanding of Asia by studying it in Japan rather than in the United States,” said Shunya Yoshimi, director of university’s Graduate School of Inter-disciplinary Information Studies, which will administer the degree. To compete with US universities, the Japanese school said it will screen applicants through the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and Graduate Record Examination (GRE), the standard tests for US graduate schools.