2003 JAPAN LAW: PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES
Keywords: Privatization, Public Universities, Civil Servants, Tuition
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved Attorney Roderick H. Seeman
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The government in 2003 enacted legislation requiring the privatization of public universities into special independent corporations. This will take effect from April 2004. As a result of the changes, teachers and other employees of public universities will no longer be civil servants. In theory the new privatized universities will have their independence. Some question this as they will still be very dependent on government funding. He who controls the money…The tuition rates, now uniform at all public universities will now be independently set at each university within certain limits. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology will still be able to set targets such as for operations. Then the ministry will approve the programs set out by the university to meet those targets. The ministry will also appoint a committee which will evaluate the performance on the program. The committee will report its evaluation to the ministry.