The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has put together the Higher Education and Research Reform Initiative (Shibayama Initiative), which is the basic policy for university reform.It consists of four pillars, such as ensuring access to higher education, and will simultaneously promote university education, research, and strengthening of the management base.The Ministry of Education will now submit the relevant bill to the ordinary Diet session.
According to the Ministry of Education, the initiative is
・ Ensuring access to higher education
・ Quality assurance and improvement of university education
・ Improvement of research ability
・ Education and research infrastructure ・ Strengthening governance
-Becomes four pillars.
To secure access to higher education, we will reduce and exempt tuition fees and admission fees, and provide benefit-type scholarships to low-income earners who really need support.The target is limited to higher education institutions that have a good balance between academic pursuit and practical education, and strict conditions will be imposed on the learning situation after going on to school, and support for students who do not meet these conditions will be discontinued.
In the quality assurance and improvement of university education, we will build a mechanism for quality assurance and information disclosure of education, promote the appointment of practitioner teachers, and diversify and make the education system more flexible.Universities that are judged to have failed to ensure the quality of education by confirming the growth of students by university evaluation will be withdrawn.
To improve research capabilities, we will give priority support to excellent young researchers with posts and research funds to improve the research environment.Fairness is ensured by rigorous performance evaluation, improvement of transparency of research funds, and thorough evaluation and verification of the system.
In strengthening education and research infrastructure and governance, we will focus on supporting universities that are motivated to reform, and promote industry-academia collaboration to obtain external funds.Universities that cannot be reformed on their own will proceed with reorganization and integration, with a view to withdrawal.
