While studying overseas has become difficult due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, "studying abroad online" is gaining traction.
On July 30, a total of about 50 students from Sophia University in Tokyo and the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology, which is supported by the Japanese government, in the suburbs of Alexandria, Egypt, held a learning session with the video conferencing service Zoom to present their opinions on university education and the youth culture of both countries.
Because of the time differences, the learning session started in the evening in Tokyo, while it was the morning in Alexandria.
After the presentations ended, they divided into small groups and exchanged their opinions.
When Ahmed Tolba, 21, of Egypt asked in English why students in Japan spend so much time working part-time jobs, the Sophia University students struggled to answer the question -- even though they have a good command of English -- because it is taken for granted in Japan.
Tolba, who had a pleasant expression during the learning session, said that it was a good experience in which he could study with Japanese students while he was still at home.
However, Miki Nakata, 22, a senior at Sophia University who has studied abroad before, said, "I may not be fully satisfied with cross-cultural exchange through the screen alone."
Time and effort is required to prepare for such an online learning session. But Taro Komatsu, a professor at Sophia University, who serves as the director of the university's Center for Global Education and Discovery, said: "Such a style of learning has a lot of advantages. Students can study after instantly connecting with those in countries that Japanese students could not be dispatched to in the past."
Such collaborative international learning connecting Japanese and overseas universities through the internet is called COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning). It started in the United States in the 2000s to enable students who can't afford to study abroad to gain a global experience. The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry in Japan has supported the system since fiscal 2018.
Kansai University in Osaka Prefecture carries out a program from late July to mid-September that connects a region and 13 countries, including Japan. In the program, 140 Japanese and foreign students discuss such topics as infection countermeasures and educational reforms in small groups, and the representatives of the groups present their ideas on these themes.
Keiko Ikeda, a professor at Kansai University, said, "We should take the current situation of this coronavirus disaster as an opportunity to improve the quality of international learning that uses the internet."
This summer, foreign universities also provided programs for online learning abroad. For example, a language school affiliated with Monash University on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia, conducted an English learning program for three weeks in August, with 30 people from Japan and South Korea participating.
Erika Fujita, 20, a sophomore at Osaka Prefecture University, who abandoned a short-stay study abroad program this summer, said: "In addition to learning practical English conversation, I could enjoy an extracurricular lesson in which we foreign students discussed our opinions after watching a movie with local students. I have a stronger desire to study abroad in the future."
The participating fee for the Monash University program is about 110,000, yen less than one-third the cost for conventional study abroad programs. It also has the advantage of a time difference of only one hour.
A Monash University official in charge said that even if the pandemic is brought under control, the university is considering another program in which participants are required to do online assignments before and after their short stay at the university.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
