Certified Evaluation and Accreditation Results forProfessional Graduate Business School

LEC Graduate University of Accounting, MBA program with aspecialization in professional accountancy

Basic Information of the Institution
Ownership: PrivateAccreditation Status
Year of the Review: 2014
Accreditation Status: unaccredited

Location: Tokyo, Japan

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Certified Evaluation and Accreditation Resultsfor MBA program with a specialization in professional accountancy,
the LEC Graduate University of Accounting
The MBA program with a specialization in professional accountancy (hereafter, theProgram) at the LEC Graduate University of Accounting sets its mission to “contributeto the development of economic society by providing a quality education that integrates
theory and practice while conducting research therefor.” And the Program has engaged
in educational activities for the specific purpose of “raising high quality professionals
with expert knowledge about domestic and international standards of accounting andtaxation, equipped with professional ethics and high-level reasoning and practicalabilities, who are appropriate to the globalization of the economy and the progress of
information technology”
The Program underwent a review of the Certified Evaluation and Accreditation
for Professional Graduate Business School by Japan University Accreditation
Association (JUAA) in 2009 and a review at institutional level by the National
Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation (NIAD-UE) in 2010, butfailed to satisfy the standards set by either. This year, the Program is being evaluated by
JUAA for a second time.
The Program focuses on the education of adults, and its notable feature isproviding individual consultation utilizing information technology, instead of uniform
guidance, on course selection and learning, since each student comes with a different
educational background and set of practical experiences.
However, there are many serious issues that must be improved, which we detailin the following paragraphs.
The first issue involves the approval of credits. The Program divides the subjects
in Instruction for Research on Tax Law, (which is required for the master’s thesis andemphasizes the Program goals of education and management) into four levels:
Introductory, Introduction Writing, Literature Review, and Writing Up. Research
Supervision Committee, made up of faculty members, is collectively responsible forsupervising students. However, in these subjects, with the exception of the Introductory
class, each student is only given 15 to 20 minutes of individual guidance, and duringthat time students who are not receiving guidance wait in the classroom or go elsewhere.
Four credits are offered for this format, but the level of instruction does not satisfy therequirement for study hours per credit. This must be improved immediately.
We also note two further points regarding the course in Instruction for Researchon Tax Law. According to the syllabus, the purpose of the classes (with the exception ofthe Introductory class) is “to cultivate the peculiar way of thinking through thesis
writing and discussions,” and “students taking the subject are required to activelyengage in thesis writing, and at the same time participate in discussions and makecontributions to the entire class.” As criteria for assessment, it is indicated that in eachclass the “contribution to the entire class including attendance” accounts for 70 percentof the grade. However, the actual teaching method for the subjects is, as mentioned
above, the faculty’s consultation with individual students, and whole class discussions
do not take place. In other words, the reality of the class differs from the purpose of theclass as stated in the syllabus. This must be improved. Additionally, from theperspective of teaching methodology, while the four level step-up instruction system isconducted by a team consisting of practitioner faculty such as certified public
accountants and licensed tax accountants and non-accounting research faculty, it tends
to produce master’s theses as mechanistic and perfunctory products. The Program
should make sufficient changes so that guidance for writing the master’s thesis matches
the purpose of the class, as stated in the Program’s purpose to “cultivating the high-level
logical thinking required of professional accounting specialists.”3The second issue concerns faculty organization and the hiring and promotion offaculty. In response to the age disparity of research faculty that was pointed out in theprevious accreditation review by JUAA, younger faculty have been employed, butelderly research faculty have been employed as specially-appointed faculty and stillteach in the Program. It appears the Program switched the full-time faculty with thespecial-appointed faculty. Also, among 14 full-time faculty members, one professor hasbeen treated as a permanent employee of the parent corporation and one lecturer has
been treated as a contract employee, and other faculty members have been hired on aconsignment basis and have been paid by the numbers of hours they teach. The latter,like adjunct faculty at other universities and graduate schools, are not eligible for theemployee’s pension plan or the health insurance program. The difference in status isreflected in the significant disparity of teaching hours that exists among faculty
members and in the amount of services they engage in, such as serving on committees.
Those faculty members hired via a teaching-hour contract do not have to work for theGraduate School aside from the classes they teach and the committees they are paid toparticipate in. In this sense, the reality of their working conditions is far from full-time.
In addition, a full-time faculty (an academic) who specializes in British philosophy andBritish history of ideas is in charge of research guidance for the tax law course. This is
not acceptable in terms of the subject appropriateness of the subject or its corresponding
specialization, and must be improved.
Putting all these accounts together, the organization of full-time faculty is notconsidered appropriate to achieve the basic mission of a professional graduate school in
the field of accountancy.
In regards to hiring and promotion, according to the Reference Standard on the
Review of Scholarly Attainment, promotion from associate professor to full professor
requires no less than five years of associate professor experience and one authored bookor no less than five academic papers. However, a professor promoted in 2012 had only
two years of associate professor experience and one co-authored book with less than
five academic papers. Thus, although the regulations and standards for promotion havebeen defined, in reality this is not implemented according to the regulations.
The third issue concerns the selection of students. According to the self-study
report of the Program, “[the Program] admits students deemed suitable according to theadmission policy and the selection criteria and method by appropriate and objectiveevaluations.” However, in the admission records of past years, there have been cases anapplicant was rejected despite their score being high enough to satisfy a passing mark,and other cases where an applicant was admitted despite a score that did not reach thepassing mark. When this point was queried in the site visit, it was clarified that
according to articles (3) and (4) of the regulations of the Evaluation Criteria for theGeneral Entrance Exam, while the interviewer marks the score in the oral exam, theinterviewer can decide on a pass or fail arbitrarily, separate from the marked score.
While the decision criteria of the entrance exam exist as a system, this system itself
encourages unfairness, and damages the fairness, impartiality, and transparency of theentrance exam. This situation must be immediately corrected.
Assessing the situation comprehensively, serious shortcomings are found in thequality of education, and JUAA has determined that the Program does not satisfy theProfessional Graduate Business School Standards of JUAA.