I have read a book called “Highly Educated Working Poor: Graduate School as ‘Part-time Worker Production Factory’” written by Mr. Shoudou Mizuki that was just published yesterday. I was very shocked by knowing the horrifying reality. The Education Ministry made the Graduate School Emphasis Plan in 1991, and has mass-produced students in master’s and doctoral programs to 260 thousand in number, from only 70 thousand 20 years ago.
This mass production of graduate students led by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has made a very strange social structure. That is, there are almost no places of employment for the students who finished doctoral program or got a doctor’s degree. Despite this miserable situation, the government has done nothing and kept ignoring it for more than 16 years.
People who get job when they finish graduate school are yet lucky, but when they proceed to doctoral program, it will be a tragedy. More than 12 thousand people are not employed full-time, left like “freeters (part-time workers).” Those people have studied earnestly and researched step by step for years, believing they can proceed their research in academic institutions like university or public facility with an environment that guarantees them for life when they acquire proper skill. However, it’s all being betrayed.
Most of those 12 thousand people work as part-time teacher, which can be written on their business card as an occupation, and the rest are working as home tutors, cram school teachers or at convenience stores. Now that the number of people is decreasing in this country, even cram schools and prep schools are having more difficulties to supply stable employments for them than before. The situation is very bad. Moreover, these 12 thousand postdoctoral people will keep increasing 5 thousand every year.
According to Mr. Mizuki’s insight, the total number of students has decreased by 280 thousand in these 20 years. So if universities can get income by letting more students in graduate school and doctoral course, they can cover the loss of income, still be alive and the professors can keep their job by transferring to graduate school as well.
The only safety net given to the young people who are suffering this situation is the “10 Thousand Postdoctoral Fellow Support Plan” for 3 years. This governmental support says, “OK. I give you social security and a million yen a year for no more than 3 years, so write your own reports while figuring out your next position. Meanwhile, I give you 4 million to 5 million as a salary.”
I have a friend that has dedicated his life as a researcher in Tsukuba University. He says that, as the applicants for this postdoctoral fellow coming to him for interview have to fight hard over a few seats, only eye-catching clever speakers get the position.
He said with a sigh, “but earnest scientists are not like that. The scientists who can devote themselves to research are always silent and cannot appeal themselves very well. I’m not a clever speaker either.”
Yet still, as this friend of mine is a baby boomer, he got a job in junior college when he turned 58 and is getting paid the same as before. Besides, his junior college has become a four-year college and decided to establish a graduate school riding the crest of the Graduate School Emphasis Plan. He is going to be even more successful as he is the only capable person who can establish it in his college. “Five more years,” He says he will be safe until he is 65. I think he will keep his position until 70.
According to this book, “Highly Educated Working Poor”, the subsidy given to graduate students from the government (it costs 1000 million yen in total to raise one doctor) is going to be begrudged. It says the universities are destined to become bankrupt from the weak ones.
Universities establish their own graduate school because they cannot gather enough students if they don’t have one. However, the government seems to have decided on a policy to spend more research expenditures on only a few top-level universities, cut the subsidy for the other universities, letting those without brand names and enough power to gather students just leave the market, in other words, become bankrupt. The government made an unfortunate decision that crushes the bright future of smart young people with doctoral degree, and raise the number of suicides and missing persons again.
Extracting from the page 21 of Mr. Mizuki’s book, the number of doctoral graduates in fiscal 2006 was 15,966. This number was record-high, but the number of “dead or missing” graduates was 1,471 (9.2%). Thus, about one out of ten doctoral graduates disappeared without having contact with society. In humanities and social science area, 495 (19%) of the total 2,601 graduates are “dead or missing” and only 897 graduates (35%) were employed. These are actually hopeless figures.
I strongly recommend this book to both the students who are willing to go to graduate school and the parents who wish their children higher education.
