More and more Japanese students are opting to earn graduate degrees. Most are hoping to get ahead in a tight job market. But others just dawdle in academia, taking courses while working at part-time jobs. For various reasons, they’re not ready to face the outside world. The number of Ph.D. aspirants in Japan last year was 62,488–more than double the number in 1991. Master’s candidates have jumped dramatically, too. The surge came after the Ministry of Education’s Council of Universities recommended, in the early 1990s, that Japan boost its graduate-school population. At that time, the number of graduate students in Japan per 1,000 people was 0.8, compared with 7.1 in the United States. The council said Japan needed more graduate students if the country hoped to stay economically competitive. The council also said that Japan graduates too many generalists. What’s needed are more specialists. These days Japanese companies are less willing to spend money training new hires; they now demand expertise.
Getting it may not be easy. Education experts say that too many Japanese students, both undergraduate and graduate, are unfocused. Raised in postwar affluence, most tend to drift through college after passing grueling entrance exams. “Many come here because there is nothing else to do,” says a professor at a national university near Osaka. “Graduate school is the place to do research and study, but youngsters also come to do jibun sagashi [finding oneself]. This has been going on for the last three to four years.” Adds a university professor in Osaka: “Students come and tell me that they’re interested in, say, social science. So I ask them what kind of social problems they are interested in. Dead silence. No answer. They don’t know what they want to do–and certainly aren’t suited to become corporate warriors.”
Not all students are adrift. Takeshi Nishino, a master’s candidate in public economics at Osaka’s Kansai University, had a job offer from a trading company before graduation. But he turned it down because he had other plans. He wants to become a tax accountant to bring some financial savvy to small and medium-size companies. “I thought it was a better idea for me to go to graduate school,” Nishino says. “Getting a master’s degree makes it easier to become an accountant.” Japan needs more graduate-school go-getters like him if it hopes to raise its competitive profile.
