일본대학의 국제화를 위한 외국인 교원임용

• 영문명: Appointing Able Foreign Nationals to Japanese Universities: towards Increased Internationalization
• 발행기관: 고려대학교 글로벌일본연구원
• 저자명: 서용달(SUH Yong-Dal, 徐龍達)
• 간행물 정보: 『일본연구』第13輯, 7~44쪽, 전체 38쪽
• 주제분류: 사회과학 > 지역학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2010.02.28

영문 초록

I have lived for 62 years as a taxpayer in Osaka, Japan, but I have no citizenship. As a foreigner, it was not possible to apply for enrollment at a national or public university after the 2nd World War till 1982, even though no legal grounds forbade it. After becoming the fi rst formal lecturer in a 4th year university in 1963, I organized a civic movement group in October 1972, and struggled against the Japanese Government for a long ten years. The Law Concerning the Appointment of Foreign Nationals as Faculty Members at National and Public Universities was established in August 20, 1982. The path of employment was cultivated for foreign nationals. P. F. Kornicki, a U.K. national, 34 years old, become the fi rst appointment at Kyoto University. He was given a 2 year appointment but after one year, he returned to U.K., because he was not guaranteed renewal of this assistant professorship. According to the latest statistics compiled by the Ministry of Education and Science, 717 foreign lecturers were employed full time at 108 national institutions in Japan. The top fi ve employers are Tokyo Univ. with 49 lecturers, Tohoku Univ. with 48, Kyushu Univ. with 33, Tsukuba Univ. with 31, and Kyoto Univ. with 22. By nationality, faculty members from China and Taiwan topped the list with 246, followed by 153 Koreans and 110 Americans. From the U.K. there were 39, Germany 34, Australia 19, Canada 16, and France 12. It was regrettable that the advisory council failed to pay serious attention to the circumstances of foreign lectures who were playing an important role, not only in international exchanges in the academic field, but in public diplomacy over all. It was also said that the council made no attempt to solicit foreign faculty member’s view when it deliberated on the fi xed term system. An exclusive or discriminative problem occurring with employment of foreign faculty members is that many universities force them to accept fixed term appointments ̶ a practice that has not been applied to their Japanese colleagues. This can be seen as evidence of the exclusive nature and racism in Japanese society. In Japan, there are no laws which ban racism or infringement of human rights of foreigners. Can we call this an internation -alized country? At present, 377 (52.6%) foreign lecturers at national universities work on contracts limited to three years or so, which makes it diffi cult for them to establish a stable environment for research and education. In spite of discriminative circumstances, and commendable when the general trend is moving in the other direction, the best three schools with no term limits are Tokyo University with 36 such faculty members, Tsukuba University with 26, and Tohoku University with 20. The steps taken by these three schools are all aimed at furthering their internation -alization in the 21st century. We, the “permanent alien residents” (Teiju Gaikokujin), think that the barrier is not a legal one, rather it is an exclusive, islander mentality, common to the Prime Minister and Governor of Tokyo. Japanese academics are too narrow minded except for a conscientious minority. The purpose of the Foreign Nationals Lecturers Appointment Law 1982 was to internationalize Japanese universities, to promote international exchange at the academic level, and to protect the human rights of permanent alien residents research workers in Japan. I dare to ask all Japanese universities to emulate Tokyo, Tsukuba, Tohoku and Kobe University where foreign lecturers can be appointed for contracts that are not term-limited. Japanese academics should first revise their internal regulations to abolish the fixed terms for existing foreign lecturers so as to put them on the same footing as their Japanese colleagues. Next, the un -iversities should solicit views from those who have worked for fixed terms and see whether their views will prove useful in the debate on whether or not to introduce a fixed term syst