Rethinking the Challenges of University Education and Human Resource Development — Vocational Competence vs. Basic/Foundational Capacities

The revitalization strategy for university education has been outlined in three directions, including the inheritance and creation of knowledge. In developing human resources for the revitalization strategy, not only specialized knowledge but also the human and fundamental abilities that support professional skills are important.

• University Education Revitalization Strategy Promotion Project
• What supports professional ability
• Balance in tree models

University Education Revitalization Strategy Promotion Project

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has announced a wide range of projects aimed at realizing Society 5.0. As shown in Figure 1, this is a revitalization strategy that focuses on three main directions.

Figure 1

Source: Compiled by the author.

The first direction is the inheritance and creation of knowledge. This involves building an outstanding graduate school program that brings together world-class educational and research capabilities (*1). This includes recurrent education aimed at producing immediately employable personnel in growth fields and human resource development aimed at innovation.

The second direction is collaboration both inside and outside the university. Within the university, the quality of learning will be improved by making the university-wide system of responsibility for educational implementation function effectively. Examples of domestic collaboration include a sustainable industry-academia collaborative human resource development system for open innovation and regional revitalization human resource education programs created in collaboration with local governments and companies. Examples of international collaboration include systematic collaboration with top universities overseas.

The third direction is by field. In the field (cross-disciplinary), the diversity of academia is characterized by seeking new interdisciplinary fields and creating new industries through collaboration that transcends domains. In the field (focus), there are projects that promote next-generation clinical education and research.

Let's consider the relationship between the knowledge (or skills) needed inside and outside the university, keeping these three directions in mind.

What supports professional ability

The aforementioned promotion project aims to establish an organizational structure centered on universities in order to impart specialized knowledge to students that will be useful for their future careers. Specialized knowledge refers to specialized knowledge that contributes to solving problems in specific real-world situations, such as cutting-edge research, innovation, and practical work required by local communities. This specialized knowledge will support professional skills in the real world. Human resource development is also based on these professional skills.

Figure 2 shows a schematic model of the various elements that enhance professional skills and specialized knowledge. "Knowledge creation/transmission," one of the directions of the revitalization strategy, corresponds to "specialized knowledge (skills)" and "basic skills" in the figure at universities. Furthermore, specialized knowledge (skills) can be considered to correspond to the upper years of the undergraduate program and the master's and doctoral programs of graduate school, while basic skills mainly correspond to the lower years of the undergraduate program.

Figure 2

Source: Compiled by the author.

Basic skills consist of specialized skills and interpersonal skills. Specialized skills directly support the "creation and transmission of knowledge" and are important academic abilities. In science and mathematics, specialized skills include basic mathematics and elementary physics. Furthermore, when promoting international collaboration of knowledge, language skills would also fall under this category.

Interpersonal skills refer to leadership skills, communication skills, etc. These are indispensable for promoting the "creation of knowledge" as group work. Leadership skills, in particular, bear the important task of determining the direction of practical work. Interpersonal skills can be said to directly contribute to demonstrating future professional skills.

Intrinsic skills are intrinsic forces that determine the direction of learning and employment at universities and other institutions. Many prominent businesspeople and researchers are full of professional conviction and a spirit of service. Also, in robotics, there are researchers who chose their field after being inspired by Astro Boy, whom they were familiar with as children, and this also functions as an intrinsic skill. There are also examples of major league baseball players whose intrinsic skills were created by their childhood family environment.

Next, let's consider the visibility and measurability of some of the "abilities" shown in Figure 2.

Mastery of specialized knowledge and its results are highly visible and measurable from the perspective of professional ability that utilizes that specialized knowledge. For example, in cutting-edge research, the evaluation criteria include whether a paper has been published and how many times it has been referenced in other papers.

In professional ability related to innovation, the evaluation criteria include the number of patents and the sales performance of newly developed products. These visible and measurable evaluation results directly influence the individual's professional career. On the other hand, the fundamental abilities that underpin professional ability, while understandable qualitatively, are not highly visible or measurable.

The visibility and measurability of basic abilities are difficult to determine depending on the situation. In other words, while evaluation, or objective measurement of academic ability, is possible within the scope of individual classes, evaluation from a professional perspective is often unclear. For example, in science and mathematics, basic specialized abilities include basic mathematics and elementary physics. While these academic abilities are highly visible and measurable through the use of paper tests as an evaluation tool, their contribution to professional skills is less visible and measurable. Similarly, human skills, by their very nature, are not highly visible or measurable. On

the other hand, data science and generative AI are often seen as contributing to immediate job satisfaction. Although their scope is constantly changing, these fields can be said to be highly visible and measurable from the perspective of both specialized knowledge (skills) and professional skills.

When fundamental skills are strengthened, professional skills gain momentum. Conversely, when professional achievements are evaluated, confidence in fundamental skills is gained, and fundamental willpower is strengthened. Therefore, qualitatively, it can be said that professional skills and fundamental skills exhibit a positive correlation.

Balance in tree models

Let's consider a balanced profile of a person in terms of occupational skills and fundamental/basic skills.

this within the framework of Tree Theory®, which likens a person's qualities to a tree⁽*2). Since humans and trees look fundamentally different, this is only a rough analogy. However, using the tree model, we can generally see occupational skills as the above-ground part and fundamental/basic skills as the underground part. Occupational skills are visible and measurable, but the influence of fundamental/basic skills on occupations, while understandable as a general trend, is considered to be close to invisible and unpredictable.

Figure 3

Source: Created by the author

In Figure 3, the small tree in (a) grows into (b) as its above-ground trunk, branches, and leaves grow almost simultaneously with its underground roots. Trees that only grow above ground, like (c), do not exist in nature. (a) and (b) are in a state of equilibrium, while (c) is in a state of disequilibrium.

Since (b) and (c) have the same shape and size above ground, they are considered to have the same visible and measurable qualities. However, when exposed to strong winds, (c) will fall first. Furthermore, if we were to tie a rope around the middle of the above-ground parts of (b) and (c) and simulate a tug-of-war, (c) would still fall first. Even though the underground part is invisible and immeasurable, it should be clear how important the underground part is in maintaining a strong tree. Only a balanced (b) can become a "tree that everyone respects," capable of withstanding strong winds and tug-of-war. Shibusawa Eiichi's major work, "The Analects and the Abacus," has a title that evokes the aforementioned sense of balance.

What should one learn and practice to cultivate the qualities of the underground? What social phenomena in the real world do the strong winds and tug-of-war mentioned earlier correspond to? How can we interpret this if we associate a single tree with a single country? It is also interesting to imagine various scenarios by considering the tree model as a plant version of Aesop's fables.

In promoting the promotion project mentioned at the beginning, there was an important issue of fundamental and basic skills that should be contrasted with professional skills in terms of balance.

(Revised and expanded version of the article in the November 2023 issue of EN-ICHI FORUM)

References

*1　北垣郁雄編著（2017）『学生エリート養成プログラム―日本、アメリカ、中国』東信堂.
*2　北垣郁雄（2018）「大学における学生エリート養成プログラム」『政策オピニオン』No.104,平和政策研究所. https://ippjapan.org/pdf/Opinion104_IKitagaki.pdf

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