Japan-Nordic Symposium

On the Frontier of University Evaluation-Making the Most of Nordic Successes-

Panel Discussion (2)Contributions of university evaluation to society《Panelists》
Tateo Shimizu

Editorial Writer, The Asahi Shimbun

Roger K. Abrahamsen

Professor of UMB, Chair of NOKUT’s Board, Norway＊Slides〔English〕： P. 212～221

Fumio Isoda

Deputy Director-General, Higher Education Bureau,
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)

Staffan Wahlen

Senior Advisor, National Agency for Higher
Education, Sweden

Solrun Jensdottir

Director, Department of Education, Ministry of
Education, Science and Culture, Iceland《Moderator》
Akihiko Kawaguchi

Vice-President, NIAD-UE

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Kato: We will now begin Panel Discussion 2. The moderator is the Vice-President of
NIAD-UE, Dr. Akihiko Kawaguchi.
I will also introduce the panelists. We have invited two individuals from Japan’s higher
education sphere to participate, and one representative from the five Nordic countries. I
will introduce each one starting from the right side of the stage.
Tateo Shimizu, Editorial Writer from the Asahi Shimbun.
Roger K. Abrahamsen, Professor of UMB and Chair of the Board of NOKUT in Norway.
Fumio Isoda, Deputy Director-General of the Higher Education Bureau, Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
This panel is joined by two representatives from the Nordic countries who also madepresentations this morning.
Mr. Staffan Wahlén.
Ms. Solrun Jensdóttir.
I will now hand over the microphone to the moderator, Vice-President Kawaguchi.
Thank you.
Kawaguchi: I would now like to commence the proceedings of this second afternoon
session.
I begin with an apology and a request from the organizers. So far today, thepresentations have been delivered so zealously that we have almost run out of time, andhave been unable to accept questions from the floor. I’m sure your stress levels are on
the increase, but I assure you that we will encourage many questions from the floor at
the end of this session. Your cooperation would be appreciated.
Now let us move into the substance of this session.
The objective of this session relates to a theme that has been raised consistently

99throughout today’s proceedings: namely, what is the aim of evaluation? It is said thatthe primary aim is improvement in the universities evaluated, and the secondary aim is
to develop accountability.
Prof. Kudo commented that evaluation should be used extensively as a tool foruniversities to persuade or obtain approval from the general public. In international
circles, it is said that the results of evaluation—information on how a university isassessed by a third party—are equally or even more important than information
disseminated by the university itself.
Therefore, the principal reason for scheduling this second panel discussion relates topublication of the results of evaluation. We certainly disclose the results of university
evaluations undertaken by our organization. But how is this information communicatedto wider society? Mr. Shimizu may be one to point out that in fact, there has been afailure to disseminate the information properly. This is one point I would like the panel
to discuss. I personally do not think that results have been communicated properly. I
hope today’s discussion provides an initial attempt to address the issue of how better tocommunicate the results of university evaluation, and how to make those results
understandable to the general public.

“What Kind of University Evaluation Does Society Want?”
Tateo Shimizu (Editorial Writer, The Asahi Shimbun)
Kawaguchi: First, we will hear from a panelist who works in a sector outside higher
education, Mr. Tateo Shimizu, Editorial Writer for the Asahi Shimbun. Time is limited,
so I would ask you to refer to the materials in front of you for details of Mr. Shimizu’s
career. Thank you.
Shimizu: Thank you for your introduction. My name is Shimizu and I am Editorial
Writer for the Asahi Shimbun. I do have one other official title, that of chief editor of the
publication called Daigaku Rankingu (University Rankings). I have worked on this bookon a voluntary basis for the past fourteen years. The theme of this discussion is how tocommunicate university evaluation to wider society. This obviously requires us toconsider what kind of university evaluation society requires, and what society wants to
get out of university evaluation. My presentation will focus on these issues.

100Firstly, I would like to look back on what kind of society Japan was when we firststarted to publish our university rankings.
The book was first launched by the Asahi Shimbun in 1994. Since then, we havepublished it every year, renewing data each time. 1994 was three years after the
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (then known as
Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture) decided to relax the standards forthe establishment of universities, and request all universities to commence
self-assessment and produce a self-assessment report. This deregulation or relaxation of
the standards for the establishment of universities brought the term “university
evaluation” into wider use in Japan.
The relaxation of the standards for the establishment of universities provided greater
freedom for universities in terms of faculty and departmental organization, and gavethem room to explore new curricular structures. It enabled universities to develop theirindividuality. As a result, we saw the emergence of many new interdisciplinary faculties,
transcending the traditional discipline-based framework. Faculties of liberal education,
which had until then provided liberal education to new enrollees, were abolished infavor of programs that offered professional education from an earlier starting point.
This was also the period in which graduate universities began to appear. In other words,
this period marked the beginning of an era in which universities would pursue theirown individual directions.
In addition, the 18-year-old—university entrance age—population had reached a peakin 1992, and it was already well known that the population would decline from thatpoint. There is no more certain predictor of future trends than population projections.
The era of “universities choosing students” was nearing an end. It would be replaced byan era of “students choosing universities.” Higher education practitioners throughout
Japan were beginning to prepare themselves for these realities.
Naturally, these developments provided universities with a new incentive tocommunicate information on their educational and research activities to as many
prospective students as possible. Normally, university evaluation should attract theattention of the general public, as a means of comprehending the changes universities
are undergoing and as a tool to communicate the individual characteristics of each
university. Unfortunately, however, the self-assessment reports hardly saw the light of101

day outside the universities that produced them.
Why did this happen? I think it could be attributed to the following facts.
Firstly, these evaluations were conducted primarily for faculty, staff, and othermembers of the university organizations being evaluated. Secondly, the method
employed was one of defining missions and objectives for each university and thenassessing whether or not they had been achieved: a qualitative, or even absolute,evaluation. The third fact is that the missions and objectives were set by theuniversities themselves. As a result, they lacked objectivity. For these three reasons,the self-assessment reports at all universities ended up being little more than praise for
one’s own wares. It was difficult to ascertain any difference between universities. Thus,
the reports failed to attract the interest of wider society.
Universities are of course part of wider society, but for universities themselves, society
exists outside their doorsteps. Among the various stakeholders in this “society,”prospective students and the corporate sector are particularly important. Students haveto choose which university they will enroll in. Companies have to employ university
graduates. They also have to choose partners for research. In any event, suchstakeholders must choose a handful of suitable universities from among the 744
institutions that exist across the country. Thus, they need university evaluation.
Prospective students, companies, and other stakeholders require universities to beevaluated in a manner that is, if possible, quantitative and enables direct comparisons
to be made. Put another way, the type of university evaluation demanded by wider
society is quantitative and comparative evaluation.
Have universities communicated the results of this kind of evaluation? Have they been
disseminated by public bodies responsible for educational administration? No, they
have not. So mass media organizations such as ours have stepped in to fill the gap. In
1992, before we started our publication, the economic magazine Diamond Weekly
started publishing a “human resource output ranking” based on surveys of corporate
officers responsible for recruitment of new employees. Two years later, our organization
produced the first edition of the university rankings for prospective university students.
Such rankings all take the form of commercial publications. They are published with102the aim of generating profits. I do not think it is true, however, that the pursuit of profit
has been the sole purpose of publication. The data that forms the basis of our rankings
is provided by a variety of bodies including universities themselves, governmentorganizations, companies, and senior high schools. It is my belief that all theseorganizations provide data because they appreciate the social value of the rankings we
produce.
The fact that our university rankings have been judged useful in social terms is what
has enabled us to continue producing them. This refutes suggestions that ours is just acommercial publication produced with the aim of making money. I’m trying to show youthat our publication has been recognized to have a certain degree of social utility.
In contrast to our university rankings, why has systematic university evaluation suchas the certified evaluation and accreditation—which is the theme of today’s
symposium—not been absorbed into wider society?
I believe that one explanation is that the universities that have undergone such
evaluation and accreditation have been reluctant to communicate to wider society thefact that they have received certification.
University evaluation in Japan has progressed from the initial system “self-assessment
reports” through an external evaluation system focused on third party peer review, tothe current systematized approach of certified evaluation and accreditation. As I said
earlier, however, in spite of these developments, university evaluation has not captured
the attention of the public, nor are stakeholders making use of the results of evaluation.
I have also pointed out that the principal reason for this is that universities have nottaken active steps to promote the fact that they have undergone certified evaluation andaccreditation.
I would like to give you an example of this fact, taken from Rikkyo University. Rikkyo
underwent certified evaluation and accreditation in 2004. The report produced as aresult of this evaluation is a huge document of around 650 pages. I found it to be adetailed and thorough report. Owing to its size, it has been published on CD-ROM.
However, the fact that Rikkyo has received such certification does not even get amention in any of the brochures produced by the university for recruitment of103

prospective students, despite the fact that such students are the primary target for
dissemination of information about the university.
The reason for this omission lies in the fact that the actual results of theevaluation—facts such as that “the quality of education and research at the university
is assured,” and that “the university is conducting research and education of a levelsuitable to its designation as a university”—are, for a university with the prestige andtradition of Rikkyo, matters of course that do not require any special mention. For
society outside the university, for example for high schools students or companies, theresults are no big news. Thus the university doesn’t promote them, and neither donewspapers or television report it in any significant way.
I have heard that in the U.S., universities that are unable to gain accreditation are
subject to extremely serious penalties, including disqualification of their students from
eligibility for scholarships, and in some states, suspension of the right to grant academic
degrees. Under such conditions, whether a university gains accreditation or not is amatter of considerable concern to students. In Japan, however, certified evaluation andaccreditation is not conducted in such a harsh manner. I think this provides anotherexplanation for the low degree of public recognition of the results of evaluation.
I would like to reverse the question and ask: what kind of universities will capture theattention of the public when they are evaluated? The answer is the exact opposite of
top-class, traditional institutions. For instance, up until 1991, very strict standards
were applied to the establishment of new universities. These standards were relaxed tosome extent after 1991, and even further later on. Thus, universities establishedpost-1991 should attract more public attention when they undergo certified evaluation
and accreditation. In recent years, private companies have been permitted to establish
universities in certain designated zones. Permission for establishment has been granted
according to standards regarding university assets and other matters that are far morelenient than those previously applied to new universities. Some of these developments
have been subjected to criticism in the National Diet. Wouldn’t certified evaluation andaccreditation have attracted more attention if these kinds of universities were made thesubjects of it first? Since the certified evaluation and accreditation system started, theNational Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation, the Japan
University Accreditation Association, and other organizations have been publishing
results of many evaluations. Most have generated only small articles in the press. There104

was only one occasion when these evaluation results made headlines. This was when
the Japan University Accreditation Association announced that it had suspended
accreditation for two institutions it evaluated in 2005. This was the equivalent of
issuing a yellow card in a soccer game. That’s why it received so much media coverage.
With this in mind, as I said earlier, evaluators should give priority to newly-establisheduniversities or those that are under-enrolled and experiencing financial difficulties,
even if means delaying the evaluation process for traditional prestigious universities. I
believe that such an approach would help university evaluations gain wider exposure.
Earlier on I suggested that the existing forms of university evaluation, including
certified evaluation and accreditation, do not reflect the needs of stakeholders. However,
our ranking system also has many limitations. After 14 years of producing theserankings, I, more than anyone else, am aware of these limitations.
Firstly, performance in research fields can be quantified in various ways. The amount ofgrant-in-aid for scientific research, the number of papers published, and citations aresome of the many quantitative indicators that can be used. However, there are virtually
no sources of data that can quantify educational quality. We have hunted high and low,
but our search has been fruitless. About all we can come up with is data relating to thephysical educational environment. In essence, educational quality is manifested inindividual students. The form it takes is dependent on the individual in question, andvery difficult to process statistically. Therefore, rankings cannot adequately assess thequality of education.
The second limitation is that it is not easy to check the reliability of data. A primeexample can be found in the term “job placement rate.” Figures are available on rates ofjob placement for graduates in Japan. The prolonged economic downturn has meantthat great importance is placed on these figures by students and parents. However, thedefinition of job placement rate differs from university to university. It should express
the percentage of graduating students who have secured a job as a proportion of those
who have sought one, but there is no set definition of either of these concepts. As aresult you end up comparing things that are not suitable for comparison, and for thisreason we do not use this slipshod measure. However, there is an abundance ofrankings that do use it.

105Thirdly, there are many cases where universities will not provide proper data. For
instance, outcomes of entrance examinations provide probably the most important basic
form of data for prospective students, and we ask universities to provide it throughfigures such as numbers of students taking general entrance examinations, numbers ofapplicants, numbers of students actually accepted, numbers of students actuallyenrolled, and numbers of students accepted and enrolled through recommendation
systems. However, 150 out of the 700 universities treat some or all of these figures asconfidential. Even for something as basic as data on entrance exams, it is not easy togather figures that are complete and reliable.
It is my view that these limitations and problems mean that rankings should neverform the mainstream of university evaluation. The cornerstone for evaluation should bea public evaluation system such as certified evaluation and accreditation that, founded
on a relationship of trust between the evaluation institution and the university,
requires all forms of data to be provided and subjects them to a full analysis. The factthat the results of this kind of evaluation are currently not communicated to wider
society is, frankly, a waste.
I would really like to see the bodies responsible for evaluation work together with
universities to find ways to communicate the outcomes of public evaluation such as
certified evaluation.
That concludes my talk. Thank you.
Kawaguchi: Thank you.
If I may just add one point: as you know, our organization implemented a program oftrial evaluation from the year 2000. As part of our review of this program, we conducted
a questionnaire survey, the results of which revealed a point related to that raised justnow by Mr. Shimizu. Respondents stated repeatedly that although their university was
disseminating information about evaluations, it wasn’t getting through to the public. I
got the impression that universities were pursuing this without any analysis of whatkinds of information should be disseminated to which stakeholders, or exactly what was
required of them. It was an interesting point to note.
But if I start talking we’ll run out of time, so let’s move on to the next speaker.

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“Contribution of University Evaluation to Society: University Evaluation in Norway”
Roger K. Abrahamsen（Professor, UMB; Chair, NOKUT's Board, Norway）
Kawaguchi: We now welcome Prof. Roger Abrahamsen, who has come from Norway.
Prof. Abrahamsen holds posts both at a university and at an organization that conducts
evaluation. We hope to hear his comments from this dual perspective. Prof.
Abrahamsen, please go ahead.
(Slide1)
Roger Abrahamsen: Mr. President, Your Excellency, dear colleagues, also for me it’s anhonor and a privilege to participate in this very interesting symposium today and tovisit your nice country. I will take you through my presentation in a slightly reduced
model compared to what you have in your documents.
I was asked by the organizers, and I quote, “to focus on the goal of university evaluationin the Nordic,” and I prefer then to refer to Norway. I was also asked, “How should thegovernment,

universities

andqualityassurance

institution

satisfywiththeaccountability of university evaluation.” The third question was raised like this: “Howshould universities utilize the result of the evaluation for improvement?”(Slide2, 3)
I would like to take you very briefly again into the evaluation and assessment carriedout by NOKUT, which I represent here. Which is on the screen, has been mentioned toyou earlier today, so I don’t need to go through each individual point here.
(Slide4)
So I take you to the next slide because this slide says something about the more generalconsideration concerning the evaluations and assessment carried out by our agency.
And it’s very important to underline that all evaluations are carried out by external
committees or expert panels established by NOKUT. And I would underline that all thereports from these committees are public and we have to publish them and we thinkthat the society would like to read them.
The reports are comprehensive and present basic information about the higher
education institution. And it’s also right to say that these reports are a kind of thoroughevaluation, which is spelled out in the recommendations, as well as more formal
conclusions. And then the reports are very important tools for the institutions’ further
work with quality development. They have told us clearly that that’s the case. And theeducational institutions normally express great satisfaction with the reports and often

107

underline their practical usefulness in their own work. We have the understanding thatthe institutions pay considerable attention to the recommendations.
(Slide5)
A few words about the quality audit it’s very important to remember or to understandthat the educational institutions are required by law to have satisfactory internal
quality assurance systems and that’s the platform for all other kind of assessment or
evaluations. And the quality assurance system will be assessed by NOKUT in periods ofa maximum of six years. It’s a very important point to underline that higher education
institutions themselves carry the responsibility for the quality of their own educational
provision. They have to carry out a robust internal quality assurance, and this is in
their own interest. We have to convince them that this is in their own interest. If they
can realize that, the institution has a good possibility to develop an institutional quality
culture. I think the society should be aware of the fact that a number of Norwegian
institutions have developed what we can call a quality culture because of theseevaluations.
(Slide6)
The next point I would like to draw your attention to is that the educational institutions
have the freedom to design their own quality assurance system within a given frame ofreference. We consider this freedom as important. The concept of freedom for the
institution to design their own quality assurance system is supposed to foster a sense ofownership and broad participation among the institutions’ staff and students. We
strongly believe in this, but we still don’t know if we can have this so to say bottom-up
reaction. But the ownership and broad participation is considered important, and I
think this is a pillar in the development of the quality required also by the society.
(Slide7)
The next point is that the quality audit cannot directly lead to the loss of certification
but it could reveal indications of poor quality, and NOKUT may follow up these
indications by carrying out revision of certification. And it’s probably right to underlinethat the link between institutional quality audits and revisions of certification can beconsidered as the central pillar in the Norwegian system.
(Slide8)
The quality audits are important for the educational institutions, for the students andfor the society because the quality assurance system should be used as a two-foldinstitution to pay continuous attention to the improvement of the educational systemand the educational provisions. The feedback to the student about actions for
improvements is crucial. If we don’t show the student that we do an improvement, then108

we are in a bad situation. But I would like to conclude concerning the effect of thequality audits by saying that the fact that the institutions have established and are able
to operate a reliable quality system may be crucial for the trust and reliability
expressed from the society to the Norwegian institutions for higher education.
(Slide9)So a few words about what we call the institutional certification. It’s right to say thatcertification of institutions is an instrument which makes it possible to change
institutional category. My colleague, Tove Blytt Holmen, expressed this to you earlier
today. NOKUT carries out institutional certification based on applications to change
category. The aim of this system is to achieve academic expansion. It is a political will in
Norway that an institution can apply to be placed in a higher category of institution. If,
for instance, a university college would like to get the status of a university, there is aneed to increase the institution’s academic competence and quality. And this may havea very important effect in the society because this may create the political will toallocate additional resources at the governmental level. It may mobilize particularsupport from the regional or local politicians, society and industry. And it may increase
the regional competence platform and again create regional innovation and new
professional activities in the region.
(Slide10, 11)
We also have what we call the initial accreditation of programs and courses, and in thiscontext accreditation of programs of study is an instrument to secure the standard of
new programs. And I feel very strongly that the society should be aware of the fact that
we have such a certification of programs. Certification is carried out by NOKUT when
an institution applies for the accreditation of a new course or program that theinstitution status doesn’t allow it to provide automatically. And the reason behind thissystem has been explained to you this morning.
(Slide12)
So I take you further to the importance for the society when it comes to initialaccreditation of programs because in order to achieve governmental support, or agovernmental-supported student loan, a study program has to be accredited.
Accreditation of new programs is an important prerequisite in the Bologna process
signed by the Norwegian government. And a very clear goal set by the Norwegian
government is that certification may be considered as an important tool to achieve thenational, political and institutional goal, namely, to secure that the quality of higher
Norwegian education is at a high international level. Accreditation of new programs
establishes in that way an increased confidence to the institutions from the society.

109

(Slide13, 14)
We also have the revision of certification or re-certification if you like. Thisre-certification is related to programs and institutions. Based on different indications,
NOKUT may conduct an evaluation of an institution or a program of study with a view
to do revision for a previously-granted certification. The revision may be triggered byindications from the institutional audit, which I mentioned earlier, of the quality
assurance system or by other indications of inferior quality.
So what is the importance of this re-certification for the society and for the institutions?
Well the reports from the expert panels contain recommendations of how theinstitutions could develop the quality beyond the minimum level. The experience showsthat institutions follow up the experts’ recommendations—that’s important—and we
consider certification as a strong instrument for obtaining the goal of continuous
improvement of higher education, which again is a very strong goal for the parliamentand expressed in the parliament. The decision to revoke the accreditation of a program
or institution will obviously create a considerable set of activities in order to retain thequality necessary for accreditation. So this is a quality-driving force in what we could
call the quality wheel.
(Slide15, 16)
We also do evaluation of significance to assessment of the quality of higher education,
and we can decide to do that and we can also be asked by the ministry or the ministry
may instruct us to carry out such evaluations. We consider these evaluations as animportant source of information for the ministry and for the educational institutions
and even for the society in their decision-making and allocation of resources for
improvement of higher education. And these assessments may indicate to NOKUT if arevision of accreditation of a program or an institution is necessary or relevant.
(Slide17, 18)
If you look into the Norwegian system it can be concluded that it is what we could callan integrated system, a balance between internal and external quality assurance with afocus on the institutions’ responsibility for the quality on their provisions. And thisbalance,combinedwith

confidence

in

the

institutions,

make

the

systemresource-effective. We consider that as important.
So besides getting more out of the existing system by improving processes andprocedures and following up other challenges, the following steps could be taken:
systematize the accreditation instruments more, so we will look further into criteria and110

procedures; and we will give higher priority to work with the examination of the effectsof the different instruments on the aims and objectives, and; we will also achieve more
knowledge on the effectiveness of the different methods used and how to reduce the costin quality work without reducing the quality.
(Slide19)
So my main conclusions, which are rather general. The various types of evaluations of
the quality assurance system in higher education create an increased focus on quality
development in higher education which in general is important for the society. It’s
important for the country. It’s important for the students and of course for theeducational institutions. And a comprehensive quality assurance system and theevaluation tools used create increased confidence between the society and theinstitutions. It creates a better contact between the society and the institutions and abetter contact between the industry and the institutions. And both the society and theindustry may have the opportunity to influence the curriculum and the educational
program if they like. It will also create a better platform for decision-making, forallocation of resources, both at the institutional and governmental level, a better
platform

for

other

political

decisionsandanincreased

possibility

forinternationalization within higher education which is a prerequisite for further
development.
So I will end this introduction by saying that the lack of an appropriate national quality
assurance system in higher education will result in a loss of confidence in the modern
society, among students and among politicians. Thank you.

“Existing Situation of University Evaluation in Japan”
Fumio Isoda (Deputy Director-General, Higher Education Bureau, Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT))
Kawaguchi: Up to this point we have heard from two individuals: Mr. Shimizu from theperspective of wider society, and now Prof. Abrahamsen representing both a university
and an evaluation body. Now Mr. Isoda of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology will make some comments. Then we will move to discussion.
Thank you.
Isoda: I was told I have 15 minutes to speak, and at this stage in the proceedings I don’t111think it’s really useful for someone from the national educational administration to talkabout the certified evaluation and accreditation system. Instead, I will try my best to
make some comments on the points already made.
First there is the issue, raised by Mr. Shimizu, of why university representatives don’t
provide the wider community with more information about their activities. Universities
would point to the fact that in the era of high economic growth in Japan, despite theincreasing prosperity of the nation, the amount of public funds directed to universities
was fairly low. As you know, public funding allocations to higher education institutionsin Japan are quite meager compared to Europe.
For this reason, in the past there was little expectation that universities would
disseminate information about their internal activities. Students, one of the stakeholder
groups mentioned earlier, were most concerned with the deviation-value scores, whichindicated how selective the entrance exams were at different universities. Their
motivation did not come from, for example, a desire to take Prof. (Kazuo) Akagi’s classes
at Kyoto University or to learn about decentralization of administrative power fromProf. (Naohiko) Jinno at the University of Tokyo. Instead, they were just interested inchoosing the university with the highest scores.
Companies also relied on these entrance scores to indicate the potential capabilities of
future employees, and sometimes recruited students on the basis of which university
they had attended. So in the past, universities gave students an opportunity to raise
their skills through academic pursuits, but also provided an environment for personal
development and formation of a broader outlook on life and work.
This situation was combined with the low levels of public funding in comparison toother countries to generate a blithe attitude towards evaluation among universities.
From the early 1970s, however, universities were subjected to severe publiccondemnation in the wake of revelations that some of them had enrolled excessive
numbers of students. This prompted the national government to impose more stringent
quantitative restrictions on universities in a new plan for higher education. This planrequired universities to take steps to rectify their over-enrollment problems, as well as
imposing basic constraints on university expansion, and particularly controls on growth
in major urban areas. In return for these new constraints, the government instituted asystem of subsidies for private universities.

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The next major turning point was reached, I believe, at the time of the Nakasone
cabinet. This was an era when not only Japan but also the Regan administration in the
U.S. and the Thatcher government in the UK were all promoting neoliberalist policies ofstructural reform.
In Japan, this political current was reflected in more relaxed regulatory structures,increased elasticity and flexibility, and eventually, as mentioned earlier, the dawning of
the era of evaluation in 1991.
At this point, in return for relaxation of restrictions, a new system of self-assessment
was introduced. As has been pointed out, however, this system required members of theuniversity organization to evaluate their own efforts to improve education and research
quality. This meant that evaluation centered on qualitative issues and that its mainconcern was not to produce reports that could be read through with ease or enable
comparison between universities.
Another more recent development is the shift from an ex ante to an ex post model forsupervision of private university activities. The traditional relationship between thenational government and private universities was one of advance regulation combinedwith government subsidies—a convoy system, as it were, to protect universities fromthe vagaries of the market. In order to reform or even revolutionize universities, policies
have now been developed to allow the entry of new players into the university sector,
most typically private corporations. This shift is one of the major currents ofneoliberalism in recent years.
The new system was instituted by the 2004 revision to the standards for theestablishment of universities. The magnitude of this revision can be seen in the factthat now, applications for establishment are judged strictly by reference to pre-set
criteria: if an application accords with the standards, the Ministry is compelled toapprove it. In addition, despite the dramatic decrease in the 18-year-old population
discussed earlier, in 2004 the enrollment capacity of private universities in this country
actually increased by over 6,000. For the private university sector, we have now enteredan era of uncertainty in which universities face the specter of bankruptcy. Private
universities are struggling to find ways to protect their students and preservelong-standing traditions and progress achieved in educational and research fields, atthe same time as confronting the successive emergence of new players in the sector.

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One further point is that now that we’ve reached this stage, I think it can be said that it
is no longer possible for universities to operate in isolation from the wider community.
One reason is that as was explained earlier, the decrease in the population of
18-year-olds means that from the 2007 academic year, all students who wish to enroll inuniversity will be able to gain a place. The balance between supply and demand has
been reversed completely. I agree with the observation that universities must now do all
they can to promote their education and research activities to prospective students.
I understand that this issue does not relate simply to evaluation, but requires aparadigm shift for universities. As you know, debate on higher education
administration in our country focused for many years on the issue of how to get more
students accepted into higher education institutions and how to educate themeffectively. The principal issues were those of how to ensure that selection for university
entrance was conducted fairly, how to alleviate the intense competition in the selection
process, and how to ensure senior high school students attained an appropriate
academic level in preparation for university study. As forces of supply and demand arereversed, however, we now need to reassess the system for university entrance in its
entirety, and also achieve a wide-ranging shift in focus for educational content.
In other words, there must be a fundamental change to the framework that waspredicated on a competitive system of university entrance and the assumption thatgetting into university is inherently difficult. I believe that evaluation is a major issue
in this respect.
I also want to comment further on the point that the general public has not displayedmuch interest in the actual content of education provided by universities up until now. I
realize that in the past, universities have collaborated with industry in certain ways
such as developing close relationships between specific researchers and research
institutes at specific companies or working jointly on specific projects, and that suchcollaborations have been the subject of some evaluation. However, I am not talking
about evaluation of such individual relationships between researchers and researchbodies. Universities are assuming greater importance in wider society. For example, avery large amount of funds is injected into universities through competitive funding
schemes established in recent years, and one out of every two 18 year olds now enrollsin university. This means, I believe, that the community will no longer tolerate
universities operating as isolated entities.

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The labor market is a case in point. Traditionally, companies have recruited students on
the basis of potential shown at the time of enrollment in university: their performanceon exams for admission to university from high school. Upon induction into thecompany, new recruits would be provided with extensive training to equip them with
the qualities and abilities required by that company. At most companies, this
employment system is now undergoing change, with new emphasis placed on recruiting
personnel with top-level abilities who are of immediate use in company activities. Manycompanies are choosing to recruit students with Master’s degrees, or even PhDs, inpreference to those with undergraduate degrees only. In order to address changes incorporate capacity to nurture human resources, or shall we say to respond to rapidlychanging conditions, there is a growing expectation that the university sector shouldtake more responsibility for human resource development.
In addition, although it is probably a transient phenomenon, in the period after Japan’s
economic bubble burst, many companies have closed their central research units andhave come to rely instead on universities to meet their basic research functions. I
believe that this led to the acceptance in wider society of the research function ofuniversities as organizations.
We are aware of a need at this time for the university sector to communicate to thecommunity, and to students, the results of a thorough process of self-evaluation andmonitoring. Addressing the question of how this is to be labeled or graded has, in the
postwar era, been a major responsibility of the Japan University Accreditation
Association. Basically, we think that the most appropriate system is one in which auniversity association undertakes mutual evaluation and accreditation of member
organizations, and in which a variety of intermediary organizations or functions help topromote communication between universities and wider society. One of our greatest
hopes is that players from a variety of sectors, including the mass media, will help topromote the development of these processes of exchange.
There is one final point I would like to make. I have already said that the decline in the
18-year-old population is resulting in fundamental changes to the quality of evaluation,
particularly to how it is presented to the community and above all to prospective
students. One other factor, however, is globalization, which is also one of the
explanations for changes in the corporate sector I discussed earlier. As is clear from thediscourse in forums such as UNESCO and the OECD, the trends to globalization and115

the international cross-border movement of people, goods, and intellectual property aremaking the issue of international quality assurance in the higher education sector amajor concern.
We believe that in relation to international quality assurance, our Ministry must fulfill
its responsibility to global higher education by working to improve the evaluation
system, so we can communicate to the world an assurance of the quality of our higher
education institutions. Thank you.
Kawaguchi: Thank you very much. Now we would welcome comments from our two
Nordic panelists.
Wahlén: Just a brief intervention. I’d like to make a brief comment on Mr. Shimizu’s
inspired talk in favor of ranking. As Mr. Isoda said, we all know that universities areaccountable to society and stakeholders generally for their provision and their results.
The question is, who are really the stakeholders? Who wants to know what? I think thisis an important question. And in this light, I’m afraid, sometimes rankings, as least as
I’ve seen them, may become too simplistic, they over-simplify and over-state simple
figures, which taken together may be significant, but do not necessarily correspond towhat individual students and other stakeholders think is important for them.
It’s true that a lot of information is needed, and a lot of it is indeed available. In Sweden,
as in several other countries, there are databases with input concerning most aspects ofhigher education, providing figures number of students, number of new students, theirprogression, their number of years of study, graduation rates. Results of evaluations arealso included. But figures with regard to employment are not available, unlike what isthe case in, for example, the UK. Through our evaluations, we encourage universities to
conduct such investigations themselves, because it is, after all their responsibility to dothem and to make the results publicly available.
So for ranking purposes, what are the data we need, and how reliable are the ranking
lists? Do they actually include such information as students, prospective students,
employers and other stakeholders need to make informed choices.
Shimizu: I think Mr. Wahlén’s point is well made. I am of the same opinion myself. In
Europe, the Times Higher Education Supplement produces world higher education

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rankings, but the results are unaccompanied by any explanation about the sources ofthe data or of the rationale behind the weightings accorded to each indicator.
You also said that rankings are too simplistic. Given that universities’ scale and faculty
structures vary widely, trying to transpose university information into a single figure
for ranking purposes is a task which, I believe, is impossible.
We produce rankings according to 72 different indicators, but we do not produce anoverall ranking. We think it is impossible to combine all the indicators. At a conference
attended by parties involved in university evaluation, held by UNESCO in Berlin
earlier this year, the Berlin Declaration was adopted. This declaration stated theprinciple that all published data must be substantiated, and that evaluators have a
responsibility to explain weighting methods and other equations used. I believe that
this principle should also be followed by all those involved in the production of rankings.
This declaration will help change rankings for the better.
Kawaguchi: Thank you very much. Go ahead.
Isoda: I would like to make one related point. At present there is a lot of debate over
who our stakeholders actually are. In the past, when confronted with the concept of
stakeholders, we university people tended to use the excuse that we were contributing
to the intellectual wealth of humanity as a whole, or to the development of the state orsociety in general, or to the improvement of the general citizenry. We must come toterms with the fact that we have not made enough effort to reflect on the actual qualityof education or research at our universities.
One simple example comes from a private university in the Kansai region. This is aforeign language studies university, and its current account is well and truly in theblack. It has also been able to move to a new campus location in a short time and very
efficiently. However, because this is a private university, its mission precludes it fromcovering all academic fields.
In contrast, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies maintains programs in foreign
language and regional studies representing a significant proportion of the world’s
regions. This has enabled it in recent years to provide cooperative educational support
in Afghanistan and to facilitate academic assistance and human resource provision in a117

variety of contexts for relations between Japan and other countries, including in Iraq. I
always think that in such situations it is extremely difficult to evaluate the ways inwhich universities are contributing to the development of students, the corporate sector,
and other elements of society, or to take a broader perspective, what role they play inthe development of Japan, or of our citizens, or even of the human race as a whole, andin the long-term enhancement of knowledge for humankind. This is my current concern.
I believe that the market principles of neoliberalism do not provide a full solution to thisissue. We need to consider ways in which we can build this issue in to our evaluation
practices.
Kawaguchi: Thank you very much.
Sólrún Jensdóttir: Just a few words. Firstly, I must say that I was very inspired by Mr.
Shimizu’s presentation because when one looks at the heading of this panel discussion,
contributions of university evaluation to society, the main point in evaluations of higher
education for society is pretty obvious from my point of view at least.
The contribution of evaluation is to make both students, who are the main stakeholders
I would say, and also industry and businesses aware of what quality they are gettingfrom the supplier, which is the university, and therefore it’s very important to giveinformation to these stakeholders about the quality of the institutions. And as has been
said here by many, the publication of evaluation reports is very necessary, as well as
general information about the university institutions.
In Iceland we are so few and small that it’s very easy for us, i.e. for the Ministry, to say
to universities, if we are to give them contracts for financing, they have to fulfill several
criteria and one is to have a good information system towards society. But as we weretalking about the press and media, unfortunately, the media doesn’t seem to be very
interested in good reviews. But if they are bad, then everything breaks loose and you
have this large heading for several days. This one is terrible, I mean, I never heard
anything so bad as this. But fortunately, the institutions, even those who get bad
reviews, get the opportunity to improve themselves, and we in the Ministry follow andtry to help them because, as has also been said here often today, one of the main
objectives of evaluation and quality assurance is to give the institutions the impetus todevelop and improve. That’s all for the moment I think.

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Kawaguchi: I’m sure everybody would like to reply to some of these points, but pleaseallow me to press on.
We have just heard about stakeholders and the information provided to them. Over a
period of two years I visited all the Nordic countries and was introduced to the methodsof evaluation employed in those countries.
One point of major difference from university evaluation in Japan was that
representatives of the student body participate in the evaluation process. In Japan,
there would be endless debate over whether Japanese university students should be
entrusted with such responsibility. But the involvement of students is something wewill have to think about in the context of issues such as how to communicate evaluation
results to prospective student stakeholders.
There is another point, one that our organization often emphasizes when conducting
evaluations, and that was reflected in the opinions of this morning’s speakers. The pointis that evaluation is a joint operation based on a relationship of tension between theevaluating body and the university being evaluated. That’s what we need to achieve. As
pointed out by Dr. Kajiyama earlier, the Nordic countries are one cycle ahead of Japanin terms of creating this relationship. I think we have just managed to take our firstunsteady steps, but there is a history going back ten years, or at least more than five
years, in the Nordic countries. It became clear to me that they have probably just got tothe end of the first round or cycle, and are now reviewing their progress and possible
directions for future years. This is the reason why we came up with the idea of holding
this symposium as a source of ideas for university evaluation practices in Japan.
Earlier on—I think it came up at the end of the first panel discussion too—there weresome comments made to the effect that evaluating bodies have also worked to reflect theviews of universities in making improvements to their activities. I would like to invite
anyone from the floor who has a short comment—perhaps it will be difficult to keep it
short—to make in this regard, particularly from a university perspective. I’m sure manyof you would like to say something, so please use this opportunity to make your opinions
heard. We would welcome questions about challenges faced by Nordic countries andhow they dealt with them, or any other general points. Would someone like tovolunteer?

119Question 1: Before I ask my question I would like to say that I listened to therepresentatives of the Nordic countries with a strong sense of respect and a certain
degree of envy. This is because the Nordic countries are both part of Europe and at thesame time have developed an organic and integrated approach to evaluation among
themselves. I was deeply impressed by this. I just wanted to say that at the outset.
My question relates to the work of Mr. Shimizu who we heard from in the afternoon
session. It was one of the major themes of this session—the issue of rankings. If I am
not mistaken, during the morning session the point was made two or three times that
the Nordic countries do not use rankings or league tables.
This can be contrasted to the situation in the neighboring United Kingdom. Mr.
Shimizu also touched on the point that in the UK, rankings are published prominently
in the press. I would like you to comment further on the reasons for this difference inthe use of rankings.
I realize that rankings vary depending on whether they are quantitative or qualitative,
and that the ease or difficulty with which they can be produced depends on factors suchas whether they evaluate research or education. I would be grateful if you could talkabout these points with reference to the Nordic countries.
Wahlén: You’re referring, I think, to the difference between the Nordic countries andthe UK. It’s a striking phenomenon that rankings are most often or nearly always madeand published by the press, i.e. newspapers or magazines. Some of them are good, suchas the ones you mentioned, The Times higher education supplement and so on; Some ofthem are not so good. I think one of the reasons why rankings are not looked upon sofavourably in the Nordic countries is that we are after all small communities, and there
isn’t enough interest on the part of the general public, so that publication of league
tables would increase circulation. Rankings of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish
and Icelandic universities would not arouse sufficient interest.
Abrahamsen: Yes, I think you are right. It has something to do with the size of thecountries. In Norway, when we started the evaluation as we have talked about today,
there was a saying from the sector that they were afraid that the evaluations should be
used as a kind of point of departure for ranking for the future. And we had then toconvince them that that was not the reason why we introduced all the evaluations.

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There are a number of arguments put on the table because in a small country, like
Norway, there are quite few fully-fledged universities, and if you look upon these
universities they are different in the way that they are specialized in certain areas. It
means that the University of Bergen may be better than the University of Oslo in one
particular field and that’s the only place probably in Norway where this field is taught
or given attention. So in a small country there is a tendency to greater specialization
within certain subjects. So ranking is not very meaningful for that reason.
The other thing we know is that the Norwegian student seems not to look too much intothat kind of quality. They will ask, where is this university located geographically in the
country. That’s one of the main reasons for the choice of university.
Another reason could be the social way of life for the students, and it was mentioned
here the job opportunity, we have no information that there are better job opportunities
if you go to this university or that university. We have more information about job
opportunities regarding the subject you have studied. So in a small country we have tofulfill all of the requirements by higher education seen together and it’s an open choiceby the students, so ranking doesn’t mean too much for the students and probably not forthe society. Thank you.
Shimizu: May I make one brief comment?
I was deeply moved by one comment made by Dr. Kajiyama from Kyushu University inan earlier session today. He made the very important point that we must pay attention
not only to the structures for input into the evaluation process, but also to the results or
outcomes. Rankings are all about results. Number of papers, number of citations,amount of research grants-in-aid, amount of subsidies—they’re all outcomes, all results.
Having listened to the comments just made, I can see that certainly the countries are
small and have a limited number of universities. But I think that it’s still possible andmeaningful to evaluate results, even in the Nordic countries. So whether rankings arenecessary is not merely a matter of size or geographical conditions—it is whether or not
we focus on outcomes. I think this is an important standpoint for evaluators.
Kawaguchi: Thank you very much.

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Wahlén: Just a brief comment. I agree very much that we should pay attention to
outcome; that is essential. But I noticed that when you gave examples, you referred to
the world of research, using things like citation indices and so on. The huge Chinese
league table of 500 universities refers almost exclusively to research outcomes. This is
not without complications in the way that it has an impact on the way research projects
are carried out and published, but it is feasible and has a certain credibility. When it
comes to teaching and learning, variables are more difficult and complex.
Kawaguchi: Allow me to move on to the next topic. I would like to ask all speakers toprovide their name and the organization to which they are affiliated before they maketheir comment. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
Now, I would like to invite questions and comments preferably on issues other thanrankings. Yes, the person in the back, please go ahead.
Question 2: Thank you for an extremely valuable discussion today.
If I understand correctly, at the end of his presentation Mr. Shimizu made comments
about the limitations of rankings and how he hoped that universities and evaluatingorganizations publish evaluation reports produced on the basis of a trust relationship.
In the Nordic countries, I’m sure it’s taken for granted that the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ ofaccreditation should be made public, but what about recommendations for improvement
and points that were evaluated positively—the actual substance of the evaluation? To
what extent are these matters disclosed? My knowledge of the Japanese situation is alsolacking, so I would like you to explain how far disclosure goes in Japan, too.
Wahlén: In Sweden, and generally in the Nordic countries, everything is public.
Self-evaluations are also public, and, in fact any kinds of results found by quality
assurance agencies or the universities themselves are available to the public.
Kawaguchi: Prof. Kimura, would you make a comment about the situation in Japan?
Kimura: Well in the case of Japan, or rather the case of our organization, we disclose
the self-assessment report produced by the university, any formal objection to the result
filed by the university as well as our response to it, the final results of theevaluation—everything is made public.

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Kawaguchi: So your answer is that everything is open.
Kimura: Of course we tell the universities in advance that they need to agree to the factthat the entire evaluation process will be made public.
Abrahamsen: Everything is public, but for instance the regulation for NOKUT, ouragency, says that we should not only in a passive way make it public, we should have an
active attitude to get the report published so we should pay attention to the publication
activity as well. Thank you.
Kawaguchi: The person up the back. Go ahead.
Question 3: Education in the Nordic countries is held in high regard and is famousthroughout the world. But as far as university evaluation and accreditation is concerned,
from the global viewpoint, do practices in the Nordic countries have a good reputation?
What are your distinctive features? Having listened to the presentations today, I could
not see any particular difference between the practices employed in Europe, the Nordic
countries, and Denmark. Why has the focus of this symposium been placed on theNordic countries? I would appreciate it if you could talk about what distinguishes yoursystems of evaluation, or what underlying features make your systems strong.
Kawaguchi: Just one initial point. The certified evaluation and accreditation in Japan
does not accord precisely with the evaluation used in Nordic countries in terms ofcontent. With this in mind, are there any comments?
Abrahamsen: I feel we have to start it all over again in a way. We have been invited topresent some of the main efforts from each and every country concerning evaluations.
And you have seen that some of the presentations have a model that is more or lesssimilar and at the same time given explanations why there are differences. But Dr.
Thune’s first presentation today was opening with the European perspective and thatwas because we should be able to see the Nordic activities in the EU perspective. So I
don’t think I’m in the position to comment on this in another way than saying just this.
Thank you.
Isoda: I would like to share with you briefly what we in the bureaucracy feel.

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Until recently, models for public administration in Japan had consistently been drawn
from the U.S. or the UK. This trend was noticeable in higher education policy too. As
has been pointed out, however, even in the case of university evaluation, there are many
limits to the neoliberalist reforms carried out under Thatcher or by the Regan
administration in the U.S. There is an awareness that we must shift our focus and try tolearn from countries other than the U.S. and the UK. In the EU in particular, we seethat a variety of countries with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds haveworked to develop a common, interchangeable system of evaluation. I believe that there
are points from which we can learn even if there are many areas of similarity with the
UK. If there are points of difference, we can examine why they are different—whether it
has to do with the size of the country in question, or perhaps the taxation system, orother social structures. I appreciate your candid opinion, and would like to make the
doubts you expressed part of our own learning process.
Kawaguchi: Thank you very much.
Are there any other questions? Yes, go ahead.
Question 4: On several occasions during today’s presentations, mention was made of thefact that Nordic universities have realized a high degree of student participation indecision-making processes as well as evaluation. By what means do you select thestudent representatives involved in these processes? I would like the parties currently
on stage to elaborate on the actual ways in which students are chosen.
Jensdóttir: Thank you. Speaking for Iceland we do have several student unions andthese student unions nominate students to sit on the board of the universities.
Kawaguchi: How does it work in Sweden and Norway?
Wahlén: In Sweden it works in the same way. Students are nominated by the student
unions to sit on various kinds of boards and committees within the universities.
Belonging to a student union in Sweden is compulsory in Sweden. This has been
discussed and debated, and the students unions and the National Union of Students
have a large mandate.
Kawaguchi: How about Norway?

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Abrahamsen: Basically we have the same way of doing this, but when a student has
been participating in an evaluation, the students also go into a pool of recognized
students which can be used again and again, as long as they are students. Sooner orlater they have to leave the pool because they are no longer students, hopefully. So we
get some very good experience with the best students, of their approach and how theyfunction in the groups. Thank you.
Thune: Well, not really Denmark, more Europe. The issue of student participation,
which is part of the European standards, is actually a consequence of the fact which I
mentioned in my presentation and which is that the standards had to be agreed upon by
the European partners, including the very strong political student organizations. But it
is almost a stone, so to speak, around the leg of the European standards because it isexceedingly difficult to convince some of the European agencies that they should have intheir expert panels representatives of the student unions if these have very politicalplatforms.
So these agencies argue that you cannot have a panel of experts going into a university
with three or four eminent experts within each their academic field and then there isalso a student representative whose main objective may be to advance the student
political platform in more general national terms. So it is a difficult situation for those
who, like me, do believe that it is important that students have a role. The student
organizations themselves have made this issue more complicated by insisting in somecountries that students should be nominated by the political student unions. They are
not serving their cause very well by taking that stand. Thank you.
Tuomi: In Finland, the administration of universities the mechanism is similar with
Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and we have, also like in Norway, a pool of student
representatives for evaluation groups, but mainly we start with asking student unions
make a proposal for student members.
Kawaguchi: Are there any other questions?
Question 5: I was particularly interested in what Dr. Tuomi from Finland had to say. It
was about the need not just to evaluate accordance with the minimum requirements foraccreditation, but also to conduct evaluation with a view to strengthen and provide
support to universities. In other words, Dr. Tuomi talked about the practice of125

evaluation through proposing ways to strengthen the universities.
My main point of interest is whether or not this will become the dominant approach in
Nordic countries in the future. If we tried it in Japan we would soon be criticized fortrying to control universities. But I found it very impressive that an evaluating bodypromotes the notion of developing proposals that provide positive support andassistance to universities. I would like to ask if this is the direction that will be taken in
Nordic countries from now on.
Tuomi: I would ask my Nordic colleagues to answer this because I don’t have anything
to say after this comment from the floor.
Wahlén: At the moment we don’t have such commendable procedures but we will
actually be introducing them in our next cycle of evaluations, partly following theexample of Finland. Norway, too, has a similar program of awarding excellence inhigher education institutions. So I’ll hand over to Roger.
Abrahamsen: Well, this is also a little bit difficult question but we, in Norway,
established the awarding of center of excellence to different universities, but that’s
basically decided because of excellent research activities. These centers of excellence areresearch centers, but of course when they are centers of excellence of research in acertain area that has to influence the educational program related to the same area. So
good results in the research area should increase the quality of the related education.
Jensdóttir: Yes, thank you. In Iceland we are still developing our quality assurance
system, I’m sure that, we will also take our cue from Finland and proceed in this way
because it is very important to make the universities cooperate with us. So we’ll try toemulate Finland even though we don’t go as far yet.
Kawaguchi: Dr. Thune, do you have any comments?
Thune: Well, it’s another very complicated issue. The British tried to solve it in thenineties by having five different levels going from Excellent down to Not Acceptable.
That was an attempt to give the universities the possibility to achieve a result whichmarked their level above a minimum standard, and we did more or less the same in
Denmark.

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The problem is that as you move into a system of accreditation, as many European
countries are doing at the moment, you run into exactly the problem which they havebeen having in the U.S. for so many years, and one of the reasons you can go to elite
universities such as Harvard, Yale and the Stanford and you can look for a while before
you can find any indication that they were every accredited because they couldn’t careless. What does it mean for an elite university such as Harvard to find that in an
accreditation process the same minimum standards apply to Harvard and to what
Harvard could perceive as inferior universities? Certainly that is not a very relevant
situation from the Harvard perspective.
And that to my mind is the main issue and problem with accreditation that compliancewith minimum standards is not very motivational for the better universities.
Either you accredit against standards and give a yes or no as to whether a university or
program meets these standards at a minimum level, or you have to use all themethodologies such as evaluation or audit. In my mind you cannot really saveaccreditation from this basic problem. You have to take that as one of your criteria forchoosing in the national system what weight and what priority you will giveaccreditation.
Accreditation is in principle primarily accountability-oriented and based on minimum
criteria. Therefore quality universities and quality programs may loose their motivation
once they realize that their excellence or potential excellence does not become evident inan accreditation process. So I guess this may be a general international experience inthat respect.
Kawaguchi: I think most of our questions have been from university people. I know
there are people here today from other institutions, for example from colleges oftechnology, and from bodies that conduct evaluations. Are there any questions from
non-university parties? We would really like to hear from you. Please go ahead.
Question 6: This has been a very interesting symposium, and I think it will be very
useful in our efforts to reform our education systems.
I would like to ask one thing about experiences in the Nordic countries. How are yourevaluation and accreditation assessed by the corporate sector? From our point of view it

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seems that in Japan, companies do not necessarily show much appreciation for certified
evaluation and accreditation. I would like to hear your experiences and the state ofaffairs in your countries.
Abrahamsen: I’m not quite sure if you have a long experience concerning the company’s
appreciation of evaluation, but let me guess. Within a few years, when the industry gets
more information, they learn to know that we are doing this kind of evaluation, they
will probably look very tightly into the evaluations, and this again will create, as I tried
to underline in my presentation, a better communication between the industry and theuniversity. And if the industry is smart, they may pay attention to good sides and weaksides of the report and possibly support the university to carry on in a good way. For
instance, they may have something to say about the study curriculum in certain areas,
and that should be welcomed by the university, that the industry, the society gives themsome kind of feedback of how to proceed in the area, and support quality development
within certain areas. Thank you.
Wahlén: The Board of the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education has at least
two representatives of business and industry. And the Chair of the board is andindustry person. Through him we are also able to recruit high-ranking members of ourexpert panels, who take part in evaluations of programs and previously also in our
audits. They will most certainly also be included in the coming quality audits.
The interest shown by the Chairman of the board is very keen and he serves as a sort ofcatalyst, as a person who can actually share his knowledge of the university world withhis friends in some of the large Nordic companies. So that’s one answer to the question.
Kawaguchi: We have run out of time, but I will take just one more question from anyone
who has something that they simply must ask before leaving today.
Question 7: Just one straightforward question.
In Japan, there is an extremely deep-rooted “beneficiary pays” principle in relation totuition fees. The beneficiaries would be the students themselves or their families inJapan’s case. Does this beneficiary pays concept exist at all in Nordic countries? If not,what is your attitude towards tuition fees? This is the one point I would like you toanswer.

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Wahlén: Well, there are no tuition fees in the Nordic countries at all so that all higher
education, except in some private colleges perhaps, is free.
Jensdóttir: Thank you. No, I just wanted to say that in Iceland we do have three private
universities and they are free to take tuition fees and they do. But on the other hand, we
do have a student loan fund and the students can get a loan to pay their tuition fees
which they do not have to repay until several years after they graduate, and then in
relation to their salaries.
Kawaguchi: Are there any other comments?
We have run a little over time, but thank you for all your comments, including yourquestions relating to this morning’s proceedings. I would like to express my gratitude to
you all on behalf of the organizers.
I will now declare this session closed and pass the baton over to the MC.
Kato: Panelists, Vice-President Kawaguchi, thank you very much.

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