Interview - Kindai University

GK recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Professor Itaru Matsumura, the president of Kindai University, based in Osaka. A leader in future-focused education, as well as a home to many successful athletes (including several Olympians), Kindai is pushing through initiatives such as practical language education, via its 'Academic Theater', as well as a whole host of entrepreneurship support schemes and DX measures.

What are the strengths of the Japanese education system???

Almost all students from junior high school enroll into senior high school, and from there, about 56% enroll into a university; a number that is expected to reach 60% in the coming years. For the achievement of the 5.0 Society, the government is encouraging actors to pursue and increase the use of IoT and AI in classes, provided even for the smaller children in elementary school.???

Recently, we have witnessed the transition from STEM education to STEAM education, meaning that ‘Arts’ have been added to the mix. As for admissions, the academic performance of students enrolling into universities is quite high according to the PISA 2022, which means that the competition is high and that the students are able to refine each other at the highest level.???

How important have international students been to the social and economic development of Japan, and how are you looking to further attract them to Kindai???

The role of international students is education, but their roles have been changing over the years together with a changing global society. The international students will be an important part of the future and a great way to alleviate the labor shortage and is a solution that adapts highly educated people into the Japanese society which makes them better prepared to live and work in Japan.???

The government has also set a target for how many international students should be accepted, and for our university, we currently have partnerships with over 200 universities around the world. Among them, we have exclusive agreements for exchange students with 184 universities. So far, we are sending about 600 students overseas every year from our university, and we enroll about 400 international students every year.?

How has your institution been adapting its operations to better support students in our increasingly technology-focused world???

The digitalization of education is extremely important to build a robust education system that tackles tomorrow’s challenges, and especially important for the students’ future and the industries they eventually will end up in. Not only providing them with the tools early on but enabling them to fully utilize it is a key to their future success.????

With our new faculty for information technology and partnership with NTT since 2022, we have provided 5G network at our campuses, making sure that we have the newest technological infrastructure, giving students the opportunity to fully utilize the newest digital developments during their student life. Even before the pandemic, we set up recording equipment and recording studios to provide a wide range of online classes. The most important measure we can do is to customize the education according to the academic path of each student and modify the curriculum to their needs.