President's Message

The Open University of Japan (OUJ) is a private university operated by the Open University of Japan Foundation, a special educational corporation institutionally established in accordance with national law. However, when it comes to the details behind the school's founding or the extent to which the school receives assistance for operating costs from the government, it much more resembles that of a national university.

The origin of OUJ goes back to 1967 Ministry of Education advisory made at the time, "About the Manner of Broadcasting Specialized Education Using Video and FM Radio." In the background of all this, there was firstly a range of different educational reforms being sought regarding problems with university education that had come to light during conflicts between schools and students; secondly, the possibilities of using the methods of radio wave-based TV and radio were being explored; and thirdly, around the world, prevailing trends were moving toward promoting lifelong education. In response to a report on this advisory, in 1969 the Ministry of Education announced "About the Establishment of 'The Open University of Japan,'" which went on to form the starting point for the school's founding.

It is because of this background that OUJ advocates university learning "whenever, wherever, and by whomever," affording our school a multifaceted objective that some of the other legendary universities do not even boast. That objective is our mission to:

Provide a wide range of people with opportunities for obtaining higher education as a lifelong learning institution; Guarantee flexible university entrance opportunities for new high school graduates, and Disseminate broadcast teaching materials in cooperation with existing universities, thereby improving university education on the whole.

Currently, we can add "the promotion of recurrent education for occupations and qualifications" to our above-mentioned mission.

OUJ today is Japan's largest distance open university offering bachelor's degrees, graduate school master's degrees, and doctoral degrees. In addition to transmitting classes over a broadcast satellite channel, we offer about 400 classes each semester, including online courses over the Internet. Additionally, we hold more than 3,000 face-to-face classes annually at 57 Study Centers and Satellite Spaces nationwide.* Our undergraduate and graduate programs only include the Faculty of Liberal Arts and the School of Graduate Studies respectively, but their curriculums are wide-ranging, spanning from health science, life science, human developmental science, social science, the humanities, to natural science, putting us on par with any other standard university. Today, about 90,000 OUJ undergraduate and graduate students all over the country are diving into subjects they want to study at their own pace and convenience.

*During the 2020 and 2021 school year, many courses have been closed or switched to online classes due to COVID-19 pandemic.

There are two major unique features of learning at the Open University of Japan (OUJ). The first is our method. The goals of people who study at OUJ are as varied as their occupations and ages. For example, someone who likes history may want to study the subject after retiring, another may want to study mathematics and data science as part of recurrent education in aiming to become a data scientist, and another person may want to qualify for university graduation, which they were unable to achieve in their twenties, in hopes for a promotion at the workplace.

However, the common method shared by all the diverse OUJ students is distance learning. Whether by BS broadcasts, the internet, or post, the benefits of this style of learning is fully used by students who study at any time and any place. This freedom from such methodological constraints is the first major unique feature of studying at OUJ. founding.

Another major feature of learning at the University is the ability to fully utilize empirical knowledge and existing knowledge. According to psychologists Raymond Cattell and John Horn, short-term memory, such as memorizing personal names, vocabulary in a foreign language, memorization of mathematical formulas, and capabilities such as quick information processing, peaks around 20 years old for everyone, and then continues to decline. This is called "fluid intelligence," and unfortunately it is difficult for adult learners to outperform students in their teens using such abilities. On the other hand, humans have intelligence that allows them to understand things linguistically and use experience to draw out the appropriate information from social environments--an ability that actually increases during adulthood. This is known as "crystallized intelligence." Rather than innate intelligence, it is more deeply related to interests or richness of experience. This is the ideal type of ability for adult learners.

At OUJ, which is geared toward adult learners, neither speed nor rote memorization of a massive amount of knowledge are important. Rather than memorization and accumulation of facts, our students mobilize their own experience and existing knowledge in order to assemble explanations for understanding actual events, then efficiently acquire the areas they are currently lacking in order to complete their knowledge. OUJ is the ideal place for crystallized intelligence-based learning.

The door to learning at the Open University of Japan is open to all who aim to crystallize their knowledge.