The recently observed high university enrolment rate of over 50% in Japan questions the higher education’s orthodox role of nurturing the nation’s future elite leaders. Instead, it seems to serve the society more effectively through raising the general standard of nation’s work force. Consequently, as elsewhere in the world, generic or soft skills have become the key words in Japan, and the concept of “cooperative education (or better known as ‘career education’ in Japan)” is earning growing popularity among those seeking this new role of higher education
The present paper (1) looks at how students see career education, (2) evaluates it and (3) discusses how we can improve it, by analyzing students’ survey data. Over 1300 students answered the two sets of surveys at Kyoto Sangyo University --- at the beginning of the undergraduate program and in the 4th and final year. We traced the students during his/her university career, to see what expectation they had at the entry, how they spent their undergraduate years and what they earned at the exit for the job placement. We also set questionnaire to a limited number of alumni of our intensive career education programs for their feedback about its effectiveness on their career.
Our method and approach can easily be applied in other countries to strengthen their cooperative education programs. Interestingly, our finding seems to suggest that an emphasis on academic study is the most efficient way to develop generic skills and thus the most effective co-op education.