Three policies of Bachelor’s Degree education at Okayama University
The conventional idea of a bachelor’s degree education has been “department education”, which focuses on the university organization as a whole. We think it is more important to have “the skills and knowledge acquired through the completion of a university education” rather than knowing “which faculty a student has graduated from”. A bachelor’s degree (undergraduate degree) education is to award students with a degree in attaining the skills and knowledge from the university. Thus, a bachelor degree education focuses on the courses in a truly educational program.
Up to this point, Okayama University has designed an academic program according to an organizational structure of faculties and courses. However, this vertically divided system tends to overlook the possibility of any student-centered learning. Thus, Okayama University has changed to a system which focuses on a more enriching and better quality undergraduate education. In other words, we want to guarantee the quality of undergraduate education to be worth a bachelor’s degree. This means an educational shift from the teacher’s perspective of “what to teach” to a more valuable and fulfilling student’s perspective of “what was learned”.
Clarifying the three policies of an undergraduate education
1) Clarification of the Diploma Policy (DP)
As stated above, an undergraduate education used to focus on the university organizational structure and the policy of “what to teach”, but Okayama University has taken further steps to make “what was learned” more valuable by assuring quality education to all students who graduate. With this in mind, we want to clearly show what a student who graduates from this university should possess and the goals they should achieve.
2) Clarifying the Curriculum Policy (CP)
As described in 1) above, Okayama University has clarified the number of credits provided by faculties and departments, and has effectively organized each curriculum in order to award every deserving student with a bachelor’s degree.
What is Okayama University’s Curriculum Policy?
This policy explains how each curriculum is designed, so students can effectively obtain the academic competencies described in the DP3) Clarifying the Admission Policy (AP)
The Admission Policy at Okayama University outlines what fundamental skills and knowledge are needed to successfully graduate. We are looking for strong candidates who follow our Curriculum Policy as described in 2) above.