The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Higher Education Bureau has put together a view that refutes the materials of the Finance Council on the issue that there is concern about restraint of national university operating expenses grants due to discussions by the Finance System Council in November. Submitted to the Central Council for Education University Subcommittee.It is said that the decrease in operating expenses subsidies is an obstacle to securing faculty members and promoting research at national universities, and there are concerns about the weakening of national universities.
According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the decrease in operating expenses subsidies since the incorporation of national universities was dominated by the elimination of deficits in affiliated hospitals and the decrease in retirement allowances, which is about 382 billion yen in real terms. He pointed out that the reduction would be more than 1,000 billion yen in real terms, without considering the increase in legal welfare expenses and the revision of consumption tax.
As a result, the labor costs of full-time faculty and staff will be squeezed, and there is concern that the employment of faculty and staff will become unstable.In addition, the individual research expenses of faculty members are decreasing, and faculty members with less than 50 yen a year account for 6% of the total, and it is said that the education and research base is weakening.
In the last 10 years, the number of fixed-term posts has exceeded the number of non-term employment among young faculty members, and the number of doctoral students is decreasing.He said that depending on short-term external projects, long-term research based on the ideas of researchers is becoming difficult.
For this reason, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has pointed out that even if research funds can be provided with external funds, it will be difficult to secure faculty members to support education and research unless they are subsidized for operating expenses.
