[KineJapan] abolition of humanities and social sciences atNational Universities in Japan

[gsjohnson at otsuma.ac.jp]

Some Japanese private schools have already changed their bylaws to make 
faculty meetings merely advisory and give all administrative power to 
the president. This policy is actually an imitation of US practices, 
where faculty senates are generally advisory, can say whatever they want 
but have no real power, and the university president acts as a corporate 
CEO. At least in the US tenured faculty have tenure for life, whereas in 
Japan they only have whatever protections are available to other workers 
and only until a relatively young mandatory retirement age (after which 
some universities rehire them on temporary contracts to do exactly the 
same job for a much lower salary).  The government could eliminate the 
protection from arbitrary firing by making university professors a 
special category of workers and putting them all on temporary contracts. 
Who, besides university professors would protest? The lawyers might 
speak out but they're now protesting the unconstitutional nature of the 
war bills to no avail. Would Japanese courts protect professors from 
firing for political speech or activities? 

Many private colleges teach nothing but humanities and social sciences 
and have no vocational programs per se, so I don't see a mass closing of 
private programs in those areas. It could be good for them in the sense 
that students who can't do math (or are interested in humanities) but 
want a college degree will have fewer public options and face more 
competition for them, leading to an increase in applicants at private 
schools. There will probably be an increase in vocational credentials, 
like teacher training, tour guide certificate training, etc. offered by 
humanities departments.

Why anybody would look at US universities, which are becoming amusement 
parks with increasing numbers of well paid upper administrators, as a 
model is beyond me. The rankings data are badly skewed towards American 
universities. First they're in the English speaking world and second if 
you ask all college presidents which school is the best, America has the 
most colleges and college presidents so American colleges are going to 
stand out. They have been better funded for research since the Cold War 
but that doesn't mean they now teach better than universities elsewhere. 
 

The assault on humanities baffles me because I teach in a humanities 
department and my students have never had much trouble finding jobs. I'
ve had many students go into banking, stock brokerages, pharmaceutical 
companies, IT, construction companies, real estate, police departments, 
other public offices. Humanities majors are doing any and every kind of 
work you might think a business major would do. 

Where is the huge demand in Japan for engineers and accountants? Most of 
the new jobs being created now are low paid temporary ones, not high 
skilled professional posts.  The legislature and MoE are stocked full of 
humanities and social science graduates, mainly law and political 
science, maybe some economics (that the government wants to get rid of 
in favor of business. Econ departments might contain a few Marxists!) 
There are very few science or engineering majors involved in making this 
policy. But they apparently think Japan doesn't need young people who 
can use a foreign language fluently and interact, negotiate, or do 
business with people who aren't Japanese.  

Greg 


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