Japanese Junior Chamber visited St Petersburg University

— Last year the delegation of the Japanese Junior Chamber visited St Petersburg University to gain brief insight into the University. We would be delighted to visit the University once more, especially to meet with its students who are interested in Japan, — said Taketo Isii, a coordinator of the international cooperation programme of the Japanese Junior Chamber. — It would be fair if students drew up an agenda.

Our counterparts invited our students to take part in international exchange programme in the humanities in August-September in 2017. Formed by the Japanese Junior Chamber in 1995, the project focuses on expanding Russia-Japan youth cooperation and covers short-term visits to gain brief insights into Japanese culture: students will stand a chance to visit Japan and then, in their turn, welcome their Japanese peers in Russia. The students will gain a true understanding of Japanese culture and way of life in Japan as they will be living with host families. Moreover, they will discuss how to foster international partnership at the round tables and debates.

As a rule, the programme attracts students from the best Japan’s universities – University of Tokyo, Waseda University and Keio University, said Mr Isii. Those who took part in the exchange programmes are now engaged in international business, journalism, and diplomacy.

Anna Porodina, head of the Office of International Education Cooperation, appreciated Japanese colleagues for their initiative and detailed discussion.  — We had an honour to welcome our Japanese colleagues at the University and hopefully we will encourage further cooperation, — said Anna Porodina. — We are absolutely happy to develop this project and will do our best to implement it.

St Petersburg University actively cooperates with Japan’s university, especially with the University of Tsukuba. During the last three years students from Japan regularly visited St Petersburg to gain insight into Russian education. Just recently our University accepted a delegation from the University of Tsukuba. — Our main concern is that Japanese students will participate in internships at the University or even take a semester here on an exchange basis, — said SPbU Associate Prof Candidate of Philology Inga Ibrakhim.

The discussion was also supported by Ekaterina Kuvakina, head of the Office for Youth Affairs in “African Studies”, “Oriental Studies”, “Arts”, and “Philology”, and Yosiko Arakava and Inga Ibrakhim, Associate Professors at the Department of Japanese Studies at SPbU.

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SPbU is a partner with 16 universities and 5 organisations in Japan. Through its active collaboration SPbU has made a breakthrough in mutual cooperation: its academic staff mobility has risen by 5 times (compared with 2009), while student mobility, both in Russia and Japan, has increased by 4 times. Today, 39 Japanese students are studying at SPbU, and since 2009 as many as 760 Japanese students have been on short-terms education programmes.

Besides, SPbU has partner relationships with top Japan’s corporations. Thus, SPbU Rector and Panasonic initiated an automated library for archive and storage of big data. The University and Mitsui & Co are currently negotiating on how to form exam commissions with the company’s representatives.