Japan keen to host more Indian students

The Japan government is keen on increasing student intake from India in the coming years, with ties between the two countries expanding. 

At present, there are 560 Indian students studying in Japan. “The existing level is so modest. We want manifold increase in the number students from India,” Japan’s Ambassador to India Takeshi Yagi told Deccan Herald on the sidelines of an event organised at the Embassy to send off a group of Indian students to the Land of the Rising Sun for higher studies under the Japanese government's scholarship programme.

“They (Indian students) are intelligent, ambitious and hardworking. They can come and benefit from education in Japan. Many companies want talented people,” said Yagi.

The Japan government will deploy a coordinator in India “within this fiscal” as part of its plan to increase student intake. It will also support academic partnership programmes between Japanese and Indian universities, said the Ambassador.

“More than 1 lakh Indian students are studying in the US. Thousands of Indian students are moving even to non-English-speaking countries like Germany and France (for higher education). We have altogether 560-odd Indian students. I am trying to see a qualitative improvement,” he added.

Japanese embassy officials said there are about 600-700 universities in Japan. Of them, 10 per cent are under the central government of Japan. Of the 1.4 lakh foreign students in the country, 70,000-80,000 are from China.

“We are trying to strengthen our system here to inform Indian students about educational opportunities in Japan. Our universities provide much better education compared to other countries. The medium of study in many Japanese universities is English. We also offer a six-month Japanese-learning course to students,” said an Embassy official.

Japan’s Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Hakubun Shimomura had visited India earlier this month. 

He had met with his Indian counterpart, HRD minister Smriti Irani, and signed two Letters of Intent towards establishing academic cooperation between the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) and the Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS). 

The aim was to facilitate advancement of academic cooperation in the fields of humanities and social sciences. A Japan education fair was also organised here, wherein nine Japanese universities and one Japanese-language school participated.

Japan’s Education Minister was impressed with the possibilities of India, and wanted a 10-fold increase in foreign student intake, especially from India, in coming years, Yagi said. 

“I hope this will be reflected in the joint statement (to be made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe) after the meeting,” said the Japanese Ambassador.