Project outline

Background

The Project for Promotion of Global Human Resources Development is a funding project launched by MEXT to provide financial aid intensively to national, public, and private universities to support their programs to promote the globalization of university education. It aims to overcome the Japanese younger generation's inward tendency and to foster human resources who can positively meet the challenges and succeed in the global field, as the basis for improving Japan's global competitiveness and enhancing the ties between nations.

In the first fiscal year of the project, 41 applications were filed for Type A (university wide) project status and 111 applications were filed for Type B (faculty/school-specific) project status, and 11 projects in the former category and 31 projects in the latter category were selected. The program of the Faculty of Agriculture of Kyushu University, "Development of AgriBio Leaders with an International Perspective," is one of the faculty/school specific (Type B) projects selected in FY2012.

Objective

The mission of agriculture lies in the contribution to stable supply of food and materials indispensable to life, conservation of wildlife and the environment, and the health and welfare of human beings. The School of Agriculture, Kyushu University, whose educational objective is "to develop human resources who have a rich ability to search into issues and a sense of balance in addition to internationally viable expertise and skills in various academic fields relevant to biological production and the environment, in order to achieve the mission of agriculture," provides educational activities by setting a specific goal "to foster educated persons who have comprehensive knowledge on agriculture and internationally viable expertise" in accordance with the Kyushu University Education Charter.

In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to develop knowledge and skills in each professional education course while maintaining education activities where students absorb wide-ranging basic knowledge and concepts of agriculture as advanced science. To this end, not only it is required to improve students' English skills as one of the communication tools, but it is also necessary to have them study the key to solutions to issues and the protocol thereof, by focusing on practical problems in agriculture around the world in addition to those found in Japan.

This program is aimed at developing persons who have acquired wide-ranging basic knowledge about next-generation agriculture (AgriBio) including advanced science as well as knowledge and skills in their respective fields of specialization, who are capable of identifying and solving regional and global problems in the field of agriculture by utilizing their general techniques (e.g. knowledge of multiple and different cultures, problem-solving ability, logical and creative ways of thinking) and with a broad vision, and who are able to provide leadership on an international scale, by improving mainly the English skills of undergraduate students.