Certified Evaluation and Accreditation Results forProfessional Graduate Business School

The Accounting Program,OHARA Graduate School ofAccounting

Basic Information of the Institution
Ownership: Private

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Accreditation Status
Year of the Review: 2015
Accreditation Status: Accredited（Accreditation Period: April.01.2016 – March.31.2021）

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Certified Evaluation and Accreditation Results
for the Accounting Program, OHARA Graduate School of Accounting
The Accounting Program in Ohara Graduate School of Accounting (hereafter, theProgram) was founded in 2006 as a professional graduate school of accounting torespond to increased specialization within the profession. It was founded by Ohara
Gakuen School, which has struggled to promote and disseminate bookkeeping
education in Japan. The name of the Program was the Accounting Auditing Program
until 2013, when it was changed to the Accounting Program. This name change reflects
the diversified purposes of the school, which is to train accounting professionals to be
proficient not just in auditing, but in a wide range of accounting skills, including taxes.
The Program has set its educational ideal that trains “advanced accounting
specialists equipped with knowledge gained by academic research, expertise requiredfor business, and high professional ethics.” It defines its distinctive purpose as “todevelop persons of talent who can work as highly specialized accounting professionals
with an advanced knowledge and skills as well as strong ethics and international waysof thinking. Those persons of talents in practice include certified public accountants,
licensed tax accountants, and professionals who will be employed in finance andaccounting departments in public or private organizations.”
In an effort to achieve this purpose, the Program stipulates its curriculum
design policy as delineating seven educational fields that are required for highly
specialized accounting professionals. These include gaining knowledge throughacademic research, developing skills required for practice, learning strong professional
ethics, and categorizes their subjects into three groups. This structure helps students
learn incrementally, which ensures the systematic formulation of curriculum. Since
2014, the Program has been guiding students in writing a master’s thesis, the successful
completion of which exempts students from the subject exam in the licensed tax
accountant examination. In addition, since 2015 the Program has been schedulingclasses during both daytime and night-time hours in order to make classes moreconvenient for adult students. This highlights the Program’s efforts to meet the needs ofa variety of students. These efforts have resulted in signs of improvement in theseriously insufficient enrollment numbers, and the Program has achieved sufficient
enrollment to fulfill the quota at the entrance exam in 2015.
Students in the Program can take free preparation classes for qualification
examinations offered by Ohara Gakuen School, the Program’s parent school. Theseclasses are offered from immediately after the completion of admission until the last
examination of the final year. Students also have access to advice on choosing thecorrect classes in order to minimize any disruption to their other classes in the Graduate
School. These services, along with the Program’s efforts to reduce the financial burden
on students and support their career development, are not found in any other graduate
schools and make the Program unique.
However, a number of issues must be considered in order to further advanceeducation and research activities in the Program.
First, it is not clear in the Program’s education how the bridge between theory
and practice is reflected in the curriculum and how its effectiveness is measured. The
Program should also respond to social requests, academic development and trends, anda wider range of students’ needs and make sure the curriculum reflects these issues. In
the Program, researchers and faculty members individually make efforts to reflect
student needs by having the students in their class complete questionnaires, but no othersystematic attempts are made. The Program should improve this situation.
In addition, the Program has made efforts to introduce subjects, including thoserelated to IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards), that are beneficial forinternationalization, but those efforts are not sufficient. The Program needs to introduce

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the education with a more aggressive and systematic approach to meet its stated purposeof developing international ways of thinking. Furthermore, it is not appropriate thatattendance is counted in assessing each student’s academic achievement. When theattendance rate is to be counted as a part of the assessment, its value rate ranges widelyfrom 10 to 15 percent, and the description for assessment varies. These issues should beresolved.
Second, nearly half of the faculty members are over 70 years, with many ofthem being over 75 years old. In regards to international experience, some have worked
in foreign firms or have studied or held fellowships in universities overseas, but thesefaculty are relatively few in number. The Program should address these issued byadding younger members to the faculty and increasing the number of faculty memberswith overseas experience in order to maintain quality of education. In addition, somefaculty members have disproportionately heavier teaching loads than others, and duties
among faculty are far from evenly distributed. This imbalance should also be addressedwith regard to the day and night class system. In 2015, the number of new students
exceeded the quota and applicants may continue to exceed the quota in the future.
Taking these situations into consideration, the Program should make reasonable efforts
to manage enrollment as well as to strengthen the faculty organization in order toprovide master’s theses-oriented students with ample and effective guidance. In addition,
it is expected that the Program should develop an appropriate review system to evaluate
the research activities of the faculty, the contributions to society, and contributions to
the Program, including in-house management.
Third, a support system should be developed and put in place to help theProgram accept and accommodate students with disabilities and assist with thedevelopment of the facilities and equipment. The facility where students use personal
computers is separate from the study and lecture rooms, and insufficient efforts havebeen made to eliminate the inconvenience of having to move from one facility toanother. Some consideration in this area should now be expected. Furthermore, many
books and resources in the library are getting old, and the number of books isinsufficient for the number of students and faculty. In particular, given that increased
numbers of students will write master’s theses, books for research should be enriched inboth number and content.
Fourth, as to improvement to the issues identified in the Improvement Reports
review results, some have been improved, but there still have remained several issues tobe advised. By estimating executable items for each academic year, the Program shouldannounce a midterm and long-term plan and take prompt action towards those plans.
Although many of the issues mentioned above should be addressed, education
and research activities in the Program cannot be considered entirely insufficient to meetthe requirements of professional graduate schools in accounting. The Program needs toearnestly address the challenges pointed out above and make tireless efforts including
self-study to improve and reform. In particular, given the fact that increasing numbersof students will write master’s theses, improving guidance throughout the thesis-writing
process will increase the quality of master’s theses, and JUAA, as an accreditation
organization, should watch the development closely.
The Program is strongly expected to handle the challenges stated above and toactively strengthen the Program’s features to order make further development as ahighly qualified professional graduate school in accounting.