Today, I went out for drinks with a former colleague from my time at the company. We talked about various things, including how things are going with our former colleagues.
It seems there are only two of us left from the humanities recruitment cohort in the Kansai region. It really hit home that, even from the employees’ perspective, there is no longer an expectation of staying at a company forever.
Recently, there has been a lot of noise in university education about fostering employability and bachelor’s degree competencies, and universities are becoming quite desperate to do something about it. They feel they must cultivate human resources who are ready to hit the ground running. What makes it worse is that the government is backing these movements, which is truly helpless.
For faculty members with corporate experience, the terms “employability” and “bachelor’s degree competencies,” and what they refer to, feel completely out of place. I vaguely asked my former colleague about these doubts. Incidentally, he works in recruitment. It may be hard to say, but there were quite a few points where his thoughts aligned with mine. After all, while things like skill development, being an “idea man,” and creativity are important, the core is Self-Regulated Learning, and that is what makes someone “ready to hit the ground running.”
Precisely because I am a liberal arts faculty member who does not have a seminar or specialized education, I believed that we should foster students so they can engage in Self-Regulated Learning, and this aligned with what companies are expecting. I’m glad I believed in it. Someone who can set their own goals, establish sub-goals, consider strategies, and reflect while in the process of learning. Someone who can reflect to a level where they can apply it to the next planning stage. I believe that if they can do that, they can survive in any industry. It’s quite difficult, though.
Perhaps, you know, I have always thought that things like communication skills are truly superficial, and from the perspective of people in companies, it was the same sentiment. After all, the value of human resources who can demonstrate metacognition, exercise Self-Regulated Learning skills, and create their own growth opportunities is high. The key to human resource development in university education lies in organizations—in the case of universities, this would be laboratories—where students can autonomously create learning communities and enhance their Self-Regulated Learning skills. Employability, bachelor’s degree competencies. Well, it’s fine to use such terms, but we must not miss the important points. I believe we should not be swayed by what is defined by such words. Active learning is also attracting attention as a methodology for developing practical human resources, but the ability to collaborate should be fostered in parallel with the power of Self-Regulated Learning.

Recently, there has been talk about “teaching universities” versus “research universities,” but I don’t think the key points of the human resources we should be fostering change, whether the students are aiming to be researchers, corporate employees, or anything else.

I hope our university realizes this point soon.