How the COVID-19 pandemic has been a bane for Japanese college students

By Jen-Shuo Hsu; translated by Huang Liang Wei

In July 2020, Maki, an art college freshman, posted on Twitter a cartoon that she drew entitled, “University students, how much longer do you have to put up with this?” (大学生は、いつまで我慢をすればいいのでしょうか). The cartoon shows how university students have never been to school or met any of their classmates since classes started and how lonely they feel with no social life, no clubs, no practical classes, and while still paying full tuition. To date, the cartoon has been liked by over 407,000 people and retweeted by nearly 149,000 people.

Maki’s artwork paints a dim outlook for Japan’s higher education sector amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In Japan, where the school year begins every April, the pandemic has delayed the semester’s opening. While some schools reopened as the pandemic once showed signs of ebbing, Japan witnessed a second wave of infections in August, as the number of confirmed cases across the country reached new heights every day.

Beyond loneliness

Since May, classes have resumed at primary and secondary schools, while many universities are still offering the majority of their classes online. The main reason for this is that many universities have students from all over the country, and there is bound to be a wave of people moving across the country when classes resume.

Fully online classes were announced before the start of the year, and since then, many foreign students have not moved to the university, including students who have not yet come to Japan. In the case of Hokkaido University, a survey conducted by the university revealed about 30 percent of the students have not moved to the city of Sapporo.

Being away from campus and unable to use university facilities goes beyond loneliness. In Japan, online databases are not well developed, and it is difficult to collect information without going to the university library. It is also difficult to replicate many experiments and practical courses entirely online.

There is also the matter of club activities. In Japan, these are not only about developing interests and relationships but also about finding a job in the future, a phenomenon that is even more prevalent compared to other countries. Club seniors have connections, and Japanese companies also tend to hire students who are active in clubs for their perseverance and ability to work in teams. This is why many university societies are still trying to maintain their operations, but a few recent cases of cluster infections in university societies have cast a shadow over them once again.

Falling incomes

The pandemic has caused a sharp drop in the household income of students and their families. According to a survey in April conducted by the Free Japanese Higher Education Project, a Japanese NGO, nearly 30 percent of students had zero income from part-time jobs; 40 percent had less income; and more than half of the students said that their family members had earned less since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Twenty percent of the students were considering quitting school due to financial reasons. In addition, relevant surveys conducted in different places in the past few months also showed that around 20 percent to 30 percent of the students reported financial difficulties.

In March, many schools discussed whether or not to shift classes online. Common concerns were that the school’s Internet infrastructure is not up to date, teachers are not used to distance teaching, and that students might not have stable Internet access. The pricey Internet service in Japan has kept many students from buying Internet packages that are fast enough or have the bandwidth they need for live-streaming lectures.

However, as the virus spread, distance learning became inevitable. As a result, some schools planned to lend students some equipment.

Technical glitches

The new semester kicked off this spring with several technical disasters reported across the country. Infrequently used online teaching platforms could not withstand the huge jumps in Internet traffic and eventually led to university server crashes. Such technical incidents even trended on Twitter in Japan when Kansai University’s server went down. Kagawa University, on the other hand, was hacked into and used to post obscene images while using Zoom for online orientation for incoming students. In Hokkaido University, the university had to end a Zoom tutorial for faculty members abruptly because the lecturer himself was unfamiliar with the platform.

In online communities for exchanging online teaching experiences, many people ask for help every day on topics such as equipment advice, system operation, and online teaching tips. University surveys generally showed that hardware problems were eventually resolved, and attendance and willingness to learn are better than expected in the spring semester. But after courses shifted online, students reported that they spent more time on homework due to the difficulty in confirming their learning status and obtaining information.

On top of that, the lack of communication during class is also a problem. Compared to live-streaming video, the level of satisfaction with videotaped instruction is significantly lower.

Starting the fall semester last September, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) required universities to reopen their campuses and to reduce online classes as much as possible. But the third wave of COVID-19 cases started in October. The number of cases is still increasing.

Emergency scholarships

Cluster infections were observed on campuses during the fall semester. For example, 22 cases were reported at Kansai University in October. As a result, 1,914 students were asked to self-isolate at home for two weeks because they took the same classes as the infected students. Many universities face the dilemma of locking down the campus during the semester or increasing the risk of infection on campus. Most universities preferred to keep it that way so far. According to the latest Nikkei survey, over 50% of universities have not yet decided whether or not to teach online classes in the next spring semester.

For students facing financial difficulties, many schools offered financial aid. In April, Waseda University was the first university to announce a ¥100,000 (US$961) scholarship for students with financial difficulties and tripled the number of emergency scholarships. In addition, the university successfully raised about US$300 million from alumni last June. The Japanese government also gave out scholarships ranging from ¥100,000 to ¥200,000 ($1,922) to students through universities.

According to the Student Life Survey conducted by the Japan Student Services Organization, the average monthly cost of living for a Japanese university student is ¥57,000 (US$547), excluding rent and tuition fees. In theory, a ¥100,000 grant is enough to cover two months of living expenses. However, the living costs vary depending on localities. In metropolitan areas such as Tokyo, the rent is high. According to one survey, the average rent of students who are studying in the universities in Tokyo is ¥56,451 (US$542) in 2020.

The annual tuition for national and public universities is around ¥500,000 (US$4,805) to ¥600,000 (US$5,766), while private universities charge over ¥1 million (US$9,610) a year. With all universities now adamantly refusing to waive their tuition fees, the financial aid may have temporarily saved the day, but the burden is still heavy.

Dim prospects

The criteria for granting the scholarship are also an issue. MEXT requires that a student receive annual family support of no more than US$1.5 million (including tuition), live alone, and work part-time to pay for living expenses and tuition. In addition, the student has to have applied for or is expected to apply for the financial aid and that the student’s family has limited financial resources, that the student’s income from part-time employment is reduced to be eligible for applying for the relief package. In short, the money will only be given to students who work part-time while also studying hard.

Many people are beginning to ask if it makes any sense to do online college studies. Japanese university students start looking for jobs as early as their junior year of university. Traditional companies like students who come straight out of university because they believe that new graduates—called “blank sheets of paper”—are the best. New graduates are considered to be flexible and to easily adapt to the corporate culture.

However, having a master’s degree in liberal arts or having studied abroad offers dim prospects for employment, as they are labeled “too professional” for corporations. When companies select new graduates, the university’s brand and alumni network are important factors.

Time for a rethink

As a result, even though the quality of higher education is compromised during the pandemic, many students still feel that they do not need to worry if they will be properly trained to be professionals as long as they can obtain a degree from prestigious institutions. In recent years, many low-ranking private schools that have difficulties recruiting students have now started to focus on the one-skill route through industry-academia cooperation, internationalization, and professionalization and have successfully improved enrollment. The poor quality of education and the high cost of private schools have made a direct entry into the workforce a much more attractive option for students at private schools or for prospective students.

The pandemic has put the urgent need for digitalization in Japanese higher education on the agenda and has unexpectedly accelerated the digital transformation of the sector. It has also highlighted the role played by higher education as an important public space for building interpersonal relationships and developing future careers. In addition to coping with current economic difficulties, it will be a more important and daunting challenge to use technology and humanities to reconstruct the university as a public space and to rethink the meaning of higher education in the post-pandemic era. ●

This article was originally published on UDN Global: https://www.google.com.tw/amp/s/global.udn.com/global_vision/amp/story/8664/4823266

Jen-Shuo Hsu is an assistant professor in the graduate school of law at the Hokkaido University in Japan.