trends in higher education system from Professor Dr. Ulrich Teichler (the University of Kassel, Germany), who is an authority of higher education and on the educational policy of Japan from Mr. Takafumi Goda (Director of the Lifelong Learning Policy Bureau of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology), who is in charge of educational policy in this domain.

In the following second session, as the “goals”, Ms. Kerstin Janson (researcher at the International Center for Higher Education Research (INCHER) at Kassel University, Germany) will introduce how goals of education and training are being achieved, focusing on examination and evaluation of “learning outcomes”, on global trends of “graduate survey” or “tracer study” in higher education and particularly on the university consortium on tracer study in Germany (KOAB), which is the leading research project. Besides, we will receive comments to deepen discussion with respect to these points from Prof. Emiko

Abe (President of Nagasaki Junior College), who has conducted graduate survey projects in a consortium of junior colleges organized as strategic partnerships among nine junior colleges. In addition, our research group is currently conducting graduate survey projects in a collaborative framework with 21 junior colleges and 43 professional training colleges, and for detailed analysis and discussion, the stakeholders from the participating colleges and schools will hold “workshops toward educational improvement from graduate survey” in a special session at the end of the first day. The collaborative institutional research (IR) project will be extended to target four-year universities as well from the next academic year. We will introduce overview of these graduate survey project results in this session.

In the third session, the “teaching staff of higher education as the tertiary education” will be discussed as “methodology of teaching.” In order to investigate the theme in line with the nature of contemporary teaching staff in higher or tertiary education, and beyond the application of Boyer’s doctrine of scholarship, our research group is conducting a nationwide survey on junior college and professional training college teachers and teacher organizations. Prof. Yuki Inenaga (chair of this study and Lecturer at the Research Center for University Studies, University of Tsukuba) will discuss the results of the survey, about the qualities and experiences needed for full-time and part-time teaching staff of non-university higher education, as well as their organizations. Subsequently, we will have a lecture from Mr. Hugh Guthrie (Principal Research Fellow at the Work-based Education Research Centre, Victoria Institute for Education, Diversity and Lifelong Learning, Victoria University), who long directed researches at the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), which is a base for the country’s vocational education research. It is on Australia’s leading trends, in terms of understanding on the qualifications of higher and tertiary education teachers and establishing practical training courses for such teachers. Further, Joyce Sachiko Tsunoda (Emeritus Chancellor of the University of Hawai’i Community Colleges and Professor, Seitoku University), who led the national movements of staff / faculty development of community college in U.S., will speak on the qualities required for teachers and the movements of “Great Teachers Seminar” for the development of those qualities. Prof. Morikazu Ushogi (Professor Emeritus of Nagoya University), will serve as commentator, immediately calling attention to the “teachers in tertiary education.”

In the fourth and fifth sessions of the second day, we will discuss “governance of tertiary education,” and “higher education cooperation and institutional research (IR),” focusing on “control of education.” Today, debates on restructuring and consolidation of higher education institutions are developing with “hierarchical differentiation through institutions’ clustering” and “collaboration and alliance (may be to merge)” in consideration. Amid such situation, we need to consider how to guarantee the quality of education through dialogue among stakeholders and hold research discussions over governance and coordination from the viewpoint of what kind of cooperation is possible among institutions and sectors particularly in non-university higher education. Firstly, to consider following developments of Junior colleges, Prof. Koki Sato, President of Japan Private College Association, will speak on “New Challenge of Junior College”. In order to reconsider the expansion and transformation of junior college education, as a result of applying the framework of the

research group, Prof. Chisako Eto (Kurume University Lecturer) will report on the relationship of external stakeholders and program development, as a case, with the secretary education program that played a leading role in the development of the junior college system. In addition, Prof. Emiko Abe (President of Nagasaki Junior College) and Mr. Shinichi Hirata (Chief director of the Educational Foundation Daiichi Hirata) will present challenging models, as they introduce case studies of diverse coordination and cooperation in junior college and professional training college, respectively.

At the end of the program, a panel discussion will be held as the overview of the two-day seminar to have a comprehensive discussion together with general participants on how each organization and sector as well as the higher education system should improve their quality and be appreciated by the society. We hope a lot of participants to join the discussion from various viewpoints.