Japan Press Weekly

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2014 May 28 - June 3 [LABOR]

Gov’t university reform plan takes away job opportunities from young researchers

The Abe government’s university reform plan which seeks to increase employment of foreign researchers could bring negative impacts on the future of Japanese young researchers.

Young associate professors, assistants, and lecturers at Japanese universities on May 30 held a press conference at the Education Ministry building and published an appeal expressing their concern over the national university reform plan announced by the ministry in November last year.

The reform plan is designed to promote the replacement of “senior teaching staff with foreign and young staff.” However, under the plan, foreign researchers could be chosen in preference to young Japanese as the plan aims to raise the percentage of foreign teachers in universities in order to enable Japanese universities to acquire a highly valued reputation worldwide.

Furthermore, the plan states that a performance-based annual salary system will be applied to university teaching posts. This could drive faculty into a fierce race to obtain better results than their colleagues, the appeal pointed out.

The appeal stated that if the plan is implemented, young researchers who are already struggling with the shortage of positions and harsh working conditions could face further difficulties in finding a job and a deterioration of the research environment.