SAGA--Fearing that a lack of higher educational institutions is causing a “brain drain,” Saga prefectural officials are seeking to open new universities and reorganize an existing one.

Currently, the prefecture has the lowest number of four-year universities in Japan. 

But it is hoping to change that unenviable statistic by setting up a prefectural university to open in fiscal 2028.

In addition, the private operator of a two-year junior college in the prefecture has said that it is founding a new, four-year university. A separate, existing private university has plans for realigning its faculties to improve its competitive edge.

FEW UNIVERSITIES FOR POPULATION SIZE

Saga Prefecture has only two four-year universities: the national Saga University, with campuses in this prefectural capital and elsewhere, and the private Nishi-Kyushu University, which has campuses in Kanzaki and elsewhere.

Saga Medical School, which previously existed in the prefectural capital, merged into Saga University in 2003.

That makes Saga Prefecture lagging behind in the number of universities, on par with Shimane Prefecture, which has one national university and one prefectural university.

Saga Prefecture also has strikingly few universities for its population size.

Yamanashi Prefecture with its 800,000 or so residents, about the same as the population of Saga Prefecture, has seven universities. Fukui Prefecture, where about 750,000 live, has six. Tokushima Prefecture, home to about 700,000 inhabitants, hosts four universities.

The number of universities in neighboring Nagasaki Prefecture, which has 1.28 million residents, has doubled from only four in 1992 to eight.

More than 80 percent of the graduates of high schools in Saga Prefecture who go on to four-year universities have therefore opted to attend universities outside the prefecture.

Prefectural officials say that many of them go on to land jobs outside the prefecture, thereby causing a drain to the local population. 

Saga Prefecture, in the meantime, is one of Japan’s five prefectures without a college of technology. The prefectural authorities are therefore also weighing the option of having a technical college opened in the mid- to long term.

The prefectural government will be working out a draft basic plan for the prefectural university no later than this autumn.

“The university will have sciences and humanities merged,” a prefectural official said. “We hope to develop personnel at the university who are knowledgeable in information technology and management and who may, after they have graduated, stay in Saga Prefecture to land a job or start a business.”

Prefectural authorities are hoping to ensure there will be personnel exchanges between the university and businesses in the prefecture and thereby to help revitalize the regional community.

PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS TAKING ACTION

Private educational institutions are not just bystanders. They are also trying to make themselves more attractive to survive competition.

Asahi Gakuen, an educational institution that operates the two-year Saga Women’s Junior College in the prefectural capital, is preparing to set up a four-year Takeo Asia University in Takeo, Saga Prefecture.

Asahi Gakuen will finalize the university’s financial program and a roster of its teaching staff by October, the application deadline for obtaining the education ministry’s approval for having the university opened in April 2025.

A “faculty of contemporary Korea” will be the centerpiece of the new university.

The Korean language and culture course of Saga Women’s Junior College, whose curriculum is centered on learning Korean and studying in South Korea, has been attracting students from across Japan.

The new faculty will work to develop personnel for international exchanges of the next generation by having students study the entertainment cultures of South Korea, Japan and other Asian nations from a business perspective and from the viewpoint of comparative culture.

Takeo Asia University will also have a “faculty of next-generation education,” which will allow students to master educational methods that meet the demand of the times, such as information and communication technology education and teaching small classes.

The faculty will also instruct in educational methods for venues other than regular schools, such as alternative schools.

Nishi-Kyushu University has also said it will set up, in fiscal 2024, a school of “digital society co-creation,” a new degree-awarding program that will meld digital technology with the university’s five existing faculties in an interdisciplinary manner.

The university also has plans for rebuilding and restructuring its education platforms, including its existing faculties and an affiliated junior college, in fiscal 2027 to meet societal demand.

The prefectural authorities are welcoming these moves of the private universities.

Prefectural officials said they are hoping that the private and prefectural universities will cooperate with each other, divide roles between themselves and hopefully also engage in personnel exchanges, including the mutual supply of teaching staff members.

The officials also said they will consider having the prefectural university provide “recurrent education,” which retrains working adults in differing skills and expert knowledge.

SAGA RESIDENTS DIVIDED 

Some residents of Saga Prefecture, in the meantime, are skeptical about the wisdom of making higher education investments in this age of falling birthrates.

Simulations presented on July 14 by the education ministry to the Central Council for Education’s Subdivision on Universities showed the population of 18-year-olds will drop from 1,141,000 in 2021 to only 823,000 in 2040.

The estimates said there will be only 6,100 or so 18-year-olds in Saga Prefecture in 2040, down from about 8,400 in 2021.

The simulations also showed the number of new university enrollments across Japan, except foreign students, would drop from 630,000 or so in fiscal 2019 to only about 490,000 in fiscal 2040, even if the college attendance rate were to rise several percentage points from the current levels to about 60 percent.

Major amounts of taxpayer money would be spent on opening the new prefectural and private universities.

Yoshinori Yamaguchi, governor of Saga Prefecture, said that setting up the prefectural university could cost 20 billion yen ($141 million) by an estimate on the higher side.

The Takeo city government signed a memorandum with Asahi Gakuen in February on a new program for cooperation in education.

Arrangements are being made for the city authorities to cover part of the cost of designing and building Takeo Asia University’s campus and also to cover part of the rent for a former municipal gymnasium site, on which the campus will be located.

Some prefectural assembly members initially raised concerns about having the new universities opened.

“Amid the falling birthrates, private universities are expected to struggle even harder to stay afloat in the years to come,” one said. “Founding a new university could weigh heavily on its finances.”

“The first thing to do is to help improve academic abilities so students from within the prefecture will account for a larger portion of new enrollments in Saga University” (up from the current percentage of only 27 percent), another said.

However, Saga Prefecture has long remained one of Japan’s top three prefectures by percentage of those aged under 15 in the population. The figure was 13.45 percent in the 2020 census, about 1.5 percentage points above the national average.

Prefectural officials argue that having just two universities in the prefecture is too few to stop the exodus of valuable personnel.

The prefectural university is assumed to have a quota of 200 to 300 students per year. The officials argue that is never too many, considering that more than 80 percent of college-goers, or 2,800 or so, are leaving the prefecture every year.

Founding the prefectural university was one of Yamaguchi’s campaign pledges for the gubernatorial election in December. Yamaguchi emphasized that businesses in the prefecture are short-staffed.

“The ratio of registered job openings to registered job applicants in Saga Prefecture is now 1.40, up from only 0.26 in 1965, the year I was born,” the governor said. “We are clearly not living under the same background situation that we did before.”