Universities seek to utilize gap years

Fumihiko Ito / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Hiroki Yoshizawa, right, works in a field in Koka, Shiga Prefecture, on Nov. 24.

More and more universities are taking steps to have their students gain life experience through work or volunteer activity, efforts the government and the business world hope will nurture human resources capable of flourishing in international society.

The University of Tokyo is considering moving its enrollment from April to September or October, like Western universities, while still conducting its entrance exams in February.

This has led to growing interest in the so-called gap year concept common in Europe and the United States. The university plans to have its accepted students study abroad or pursue volunteer activities during the six months before they enter the university.

"We want our students to enter the university after they learn the social value of study and become aware of various issues, not just come to college as a continuation of their entrance exam preparations," University of Tokyo President Junichi Hamada said.

Akita International University in Akita is a domestic pioneer in this field. In the 2008 academic year, it introduced a special admission quota for students who venture into adult society before they enter the university in September.

According to the university, students have found various projects on their own initiative, including removing land mines in Cambodia, working at a kindergarten in Australia and farming in Japan.

Forty-six students have applied for the 10 special admission slots available in September next year, the university said.

Toyo University in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, is considering adopting a "step year" system, which would dispatch students for a year to projects working to revitalize domestic farming communities.

The university began a trial of this program from last academic year and has sent five students to Iwate Prefecture and elsewhere.

Shinji Aoki, head of the university's undergraduate school of sociology, said, "These students have a clearer sense of purpose when they enter society, and it will help them get a job. I think 'slow and steady wins the race' in terms of human resources development."

In proposals made this year for developing international human resources, the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) suggested utilizing gap years to correct students' lack of understanding of what it is to work. The federation also thought it would correct their overly introspective mindset and poor basic abilities, including communication skills.

Many university graduates have been quitting jobs quickly in recent years, and corporations are dissatisfied with what they see as insufficient efforts by universities to develop human resources capable of working in international society.

Kaoru Sunada, representative director at Japan Gap Year Organization, said: "The prolonged recession has reduced corporations' ability to train their employees, so corporations want new university graduates to be full-fledged adults."

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Student's eyes opened

Wanting to learn about the difficulties facing domestic farming communities, Hiroki Yoshizawa, a third-year student in the University of Tokyo's economics department, took a leave of absence from school and started working in fields operated by a agricultural union in Koka, Shiga Prefecture, at the end of August.

Yoshizawa, 21, passed the university's entrance examination while still a student at a combined private middle and high school in Tokyo, but he found the university's lectures boring.

During Yoshizawa's first year, friends asked him to join a trip organized by a group to support Cambodian children. Yoshizawa was shocked at the poverty he saw, which spurred him to take the internship.

"I came to see a link with the world, and the school's lectures became more interesting," he said.

His classmates are now job hunting, but Yoshizawa said, "I'd like to find the path I should follow, rather than get a job without understanding the meaning [of that work]."

AIESEC in Japan arranges internships at overseas companies and nongovernmental organizations for university students. According to the organization, about 150 students participated in such internships in fiscal 2008 but more than 500 are expected to do so this fiscal year.

About 10 percent to 20 percent of participants take a leave of absence from school to take a long-term training course, the organization said.

"More students want to acquire abilities --while they're at university--that society will require in the future," said 22-year-old Soichiro Nishimura, deputy director general of AIESEC in Japan and a fourth-year student at Keio University.