Tokyo Tech Visionary Project is a compulsory subject for the first-year students at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. It encourages self-discovery and aims to motivate students to set individual goals so that they can envision their own path throughout the four years of engineering studies at the undergraduate level. The course alternates between lectures and group work. Throughout the course, students will listen to some talks about the non-engineering field that have not been encountered yet. It takes importance on the development of personality, sociability and creativity. It also allows students to identify, scrutinize, and convey problems, enhancing the interactive set of skills needed for efficient communication and presentation.
The lecture by Dr. Satoko Fukahori was held last April 21, 2016 and was entitled “The Japanese University Entrance Examination Reform – What’s it all about?”. The lecture was attended by all GSEP students and lecturers.
1.Lecture
The theme of the lecture is about education. At the start of the lecture, Dr. Fukahori asked the class to define education. The students gave different answers on how they would define education. Dr. Fukahori said education is what happens when you become a different person as you leave the classroom. She also said that United Nations consider education as a humanitarian act and its fundamental role is the liberation of the individual.
Dr. Fukahori continued the lecture 
and focused mainly on re-examining cultural assumptions about education, and examining one’s cultural baggage and then a discussion about the case of Japan on how they were able to achieve equality through education. She gave a brief historical background of the education system in Japan mentioning that Japan has always been a highly educational society. She has walked the students through the evolution of education in Japanese society from the Edo period,to the Meiji 
restoration, continuing to the post-World War II transformation and until the present system.
The third part of her discussion dwelled on current university entrance examination system at it’s apparent need for a revamp. Some issues such as the changing society of Japan and the 18-yer old declining population in Japan had skewed the role of university entrance exams. She elaborated however that the strong resistance from the university sector coupled with the strong expectation and disappointment from the secondary sector here in japan makes it difficult to implement the necessary revamp. On her final slide, she posed the question for the student’s discussion for the next meeting: “How can the Japanese pursue equality and excellence in a changing society?”.
After the talk, the students were given their Reflection paper where they can write the summary of the presentation and their thoughts about it.
2. Group work
The discussion class was held on the next meeting, April 25. As usual, the whole class was divided into 3 groups, with each group having 4-5 members each. With each of them bringing their Reflection paper with them, they have discussed the things they have learned from the talk of Dr. Fukahori. They were also asked to write their thoughts on the group’s entakun, a round paper that was given to them from the beginning of the session. After their group discussion, representatives per group were given a chance to present in front of the class about what their group has talked about. Some of pictures of the entakun after the students have written on them can be seen below.
As for the classroom discussion, we discussed the question that was posed by Dr. Fukahori in her presentation: “How can the Japanese Equality and excellence in a changing society?”. The group had a very lively discussion. Some students suggested that the current curriculum needs to be changed but they noted that actually the system was fine until the Japanese population declined so maybe Japan should address the population issue and work harder to increase the population again. However, changing the curriculum is easier that increasing the population of Japan.
Another answer proposed that Japan should close some of the private schools, or if not increase the standards of the quality of education. But it has been questioned how can actually closing private schools help in pursuing equality and excellence, the end result would probably be more detrimental.
Some students proposed that Japan follows the homogenous system of education, like that of US. Another idea was raised, that Japan shifts to the combination of heterogeneous and homogeneous system can work in Japan. More ideas and thoughts came in such as instead of giving emphasis only on academic excellence, schools must also give more weight on extra-curricular activities and learning English and all other skills needed for globalization.
There was no shortage of thoughts and ideas from the students. And this time, the class extended for another extra 15 minutes, but nobody seems to mind. It’s good that they don’t have a class after.
Speaker’s Profile : Dr. Satoko Fukahori
Our speaker is the current Director of the Department for Higher Education Research at the National Institute for Educational Policy Research of Japan. She earned her PhD in Sociology of Education at Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences- Teacher College. She has an MA in Comparative Education from Kyoto University and BA in Comparative Education also from Kyoto University. Her main areas of research are: High school to university transition and articulation of STEM courses, Youths’ life course analyses based on longitudinal/panel studies, Quality assurance of higher education, Assessment of higher education learning outcomes, and quality assurance of early childhood programs.
More about the speaker’s profile and research interests can be found here : http://www.grips.ac.jp/list/facultyinfo/fukahori_satoko/
Written by: Eden G. Mariquit