著者

荒井 克弘

出版者

日本教育社会学会

雑誌

教育社会学研究 (ISSN:03873145)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.45, pp.35-50, 1989-10-01

被引用文献数

4

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Reforming graduate programs in the university has become one of the most popular issues in Japanese higher education. Many recommendations such as RINKYOSHIN TOSHIN (reports on educational reform) which recommend reform have been presented to the government. The recommendations suggest that the graduate engineering programs in the university should be restructured to cope with Japan's socio-industrial demands, thereby reflecting Japan's present emphasis on high technology. The study consisted of four sections: (1) pressures for re-structuring programs in graduate schools of engineering, (2) the new graduate engineering programs established after 1975, (3) informal training programs in the university KENKYUSHITSU (unit of research laboratories), and (4) conclusion. Issues such as the new development of science and technology, the expansion of graduate engineering programd in the university, and the internationalization of those programs, including the issue of the increase of foreign students, were discussed in the 1st section as pressures for the reform. The 2nd section discussed the new graduate engineering programs which were established after 1975. Programs were classified into five groups according to the types of articulational relationships between undergraduate and graduate programs in the university. It was found that the apprenticeship-type informal training in the KENKYUSHITSU is still the dominant type in the university graduate programs. Furthermore, a structural simplification based on the managerial efficiency was observed as well. In the 3rd section, the educational quality of the 116 graduate schools of engineering in 1988 was examined. In order to examine each school, the ratio of teachers to students was used as the quality indicator for this analysis. This analysis revealed that 1/3 of 116 graduate schools of engineering were not qualitatively satisfactory. The last section concluded that there was no single and clear proposal to reform this educational system. Any single system would not be able to replace it. Therefore, it was recommended that diversification of graduate programs in engineering schools, including re-structuring the present KENKYUSHITSU system, be encouraged in Japan.