Photo/Illutration A campus of the Waseda University in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward bans entry due to the spread of the new coronavirus in May 2020. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The government is planning to ease the upper limit on the number of credits that college students can take through online classes.

The education ministry is considering the step with an eye to introducing the regulatory change in the fiscal year that starts in April 2023.

In an era where everything is online, it is inevitable to expand the use of information technology.

But ensuring effective and beneficial use of IT in education requires teachers and students to understand both the advantages and disadvantages of online learning and make steady efforts for improvement.

Needless to say, the proposed relaxation of the regulations on Web-based university courses must be done without undermining the quality of education.

Online classes were introduced widely in Japan in the spring of 2020 in response to the outbreak of COVID-19.

The biggest advantage of remote learning over the traditional face-to-face approach is that it allows students to take classes anytime and anywhere and connect easily even with overseas universities and students.

Currently, students are allowed to take only up to 60 credits, out of 124 required for graduation, through online courses. In a Jan. 16 meeting, the education ministry’s Central Council for Education basically approved the proposal to scrap the ceiling under certain conditions.

The ministry will work out the specific criteria that institutions need to meet to qualify for this measure. It intends to avoid setting a high bar so that the benefits of online learning will not be reduced.

But there is also a downside to online learning. The quality levels of online university classes vary widely.

There have been reports on how videoconferencing and other online technologies have led to closer communication between teachers and students and improved academic performances among learners. But the opposite effects have been observed in some cases.

Many students have been complaining about mental and physical health problems due to their discontent with online classes and stress from being unable to have face-to-face communication with classmates and friends.

It is also vital to enhance the system to provide care for students who are struggling to adjust to online learning.

A recently discovered case of cheating on attendance involving some 100 students at Waseda University has underscored the challenges facing schools operating online courses.

The university in Tokyo has decided to fail around 100 students in its School of Commerce for taking a shortcut in an online course by playing video lectures at home simultaneously instead of one by one.

These students abused the advantage of being able to access the course anytime they wanted. Their cheating was discovered by an IT-savvy instructor who checked the history of videos replayed. But some experts say this is only the tip of the iceberg because no such checking is done in many cases.

The Central Council for Education is also considering the proposal to ease the accreditation standards for academic staffing to make it easier for universities to open new faculties and departments in response to the changing needs of society.

This regulatory review also raises concerns about a possible decline in the quality of higher education. Some universities, for example, may be tempted to reduce the number of professors and other full-time teaching positions and instead hire more part-time instructors to teach classes to cut personnel costs.

If the relaxed staffing standards are widely abused for such cost-cutting efforts, the step would only do more harm than good.

There has been a growing erosion of the credibility of academia because of a series of scandals that have hit universities, including alleged tax evasion involving a former board chairman of Nihon University.

It is vital to take necessary steps to ensure that the proposed easing of regulations will not cause harmful effects.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Feb. 20

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