TOKYO — As the global flow of international students continues to expand and crisscross countries and continents, there is at least one corner of the world that ems to be going against the flow: Japan.
According to the latest statistics available from the Japane Ministry of Education and Science, the number of Japane students studying abroad declined 11 percent to 67,000 in 2008, compared to 2007. The number was off 20 percent from the peak in 2004 and according to experts and university officials, that downward trajectory has continued since 2008.
“For the last three to four years, you get the n that the number has been declining steadily,” said Tatsu Hoshino, an independent foreign study counlor in Tokyo.
But the falling number of Japane youth eager to study overas appears to be more than just an enrollment trend. It is also strikingly inconsistent with the direction that the leading Japane employers say they want to take, as they ek to expand their global reach in arch of new markets. Their strategy relies on internationally savvy young talent.
“There is clearly a mismatch between what the corporate recruiters are looking for and the college job ekers,” who skills do not match the employers’ requirements, said Hitomi Okazaki, editor in chief of Riku-nabi, the leading job-arch Web site in Japan.
Only 68.8 percent of the students poid to graduate in March had found a job as of December, a record low, according to government statistics. The figure was 81.6 percent in 2007.
College educators and government officials often complain about waning student interests in overas studies, despite the fact that the education ministry and universities are pushing students to study abroad to meet the growing needs for the society to become more internationally oriented.
Naoki Ogi, professor of education at Hoi University in Tokyo, who frequently offers commentaries in the media on Japane youth, has a clo-up view of the issue.
Until veral years ago, “there would be 6 or 7 students in my upperclassmen’s minar
of 20, who had overas study experiences,” he said by telephone. “Currently, there is none in my minar of 17.”
He has compiled his own theory of why this is the ca. Young Japane were increasingly becoming introverted and risk-aver, Mr. Ogi said, and were unwilling and ill-prepared to take on new challenges. He added that he believed their lack of interest in going abroad was part of that growing unea with the unknown and the challenging.
“They are growing weak and feeble mentally and some even lack the basic survival instincts,” he said.
Hochuen Kwan, a sophomore at Wada University in Tokyo, said he believed Japane college students generally had lower energy and motivation than young students from his native Hong Kong. “For Japane students, getting into top university is their goal and once that’s done, they don’t have much energy to study so hard,” he said. Japane students go through a grueling examination to get into university but completing university studies is generally not considered difficult.
Ms. Okazaki of Riku-nabi said that one reason students were staying put was financial, given the state of the economy, especially since tuition in countries like the United States is soaring.
She also argued that there were still plenty of college job ekers with the energy and confidence they need to land jobs with big companies. But many of them were caught off guard, however, when corporations began asking for “globally oriented talent,” she said. “Companies began saying that very recently,” just this past year or so, she said. “It takes years of preparation for students to go on an overas study program.”
There are signs, some experts say, that college students are reconsidering study-abroad programs. “Since fall, the number of participants in the study abroad fair type events is growing,” said Mr. Hoshino, the counlor, who left a leading study-abroad company to become an independent counlor, nsing a renewed market demand.
In the meantime, the mismatch in the labor market continues. More big Japane corporations say they are planning to make their overas business — rather than the do
mestic market — their main focus, and they are publicizing their decision to hire more non-Japane, in part to offt their inability to cure young Japane capable and interested in taking on international jobs.
Companies like Panasonic, Sony, Lawson, Yamato Transport and Fast Retailing, which operates the Uniqlo brand clothing stores, are among the enterpris that recently said they would step up their hiring of non-Japane to 30 to 80 percent of all new hires. Panasonic recently said that of 1,390 new employees it planned to recruit this coming year, 1,100 would not be Japane.
This new emphasis on international recruitment is suddenly making international students studying at Japane universities a hot commodity.
