Dear colleagues,Reprinting a comment from the internet petition seeking a speedy and just decision in the court case seeking temporary measures to preserve the status of a lecturer fired by APU.
[26] 2006-06-29 17:52:39
In Order to Improve APU (Yamaguchi Prefecture: A Previous APU Faculty Member) (See (in Japanese) http://university.sub.jp/apu/saiban/index.php?job=kobetsuhyouji&aux=31)."The system of language teaching tutors and senior tutors [the Japanese is senior lecturers, but tutors is a better translation] on contracts that APU is currently introducing was, I believe, introduced after disposing of faculty who had been abusively exploited, and replacing them with tutors as a cost-cutting measure. In the long-term, the introduction of this system is not in the best interests of APU, which is, after all, selling itself on the basis of its language education. The decision to fire those lecturers with much experience in language teaching will lead to a decline in the quality of APU's education. At the same time, it is an insult to those who have rendered distinguished service in establishing from scratch APU's language programme.
Today, APU is busy erecting new buildings and using the mass media to noisily trumpet its bilingual education. If APU's policy is to replace its language teachers with inexperienced and under-qualified teachers who are cheap and disposable, then APU's education is exactly the same as the recent scandal in which documentation was fabricated that claimed that unsafe Japanese buildings were earthquake resistant. Like these buildings, APU too looks to be without problems on the surface - but the essential steel frame supposed to be embedded within the building's concrete is missing.
Is a university an institution than only pursues profits? People in charge of APU should rethink both what they are doing and what impact their decisions will have on the future of the Ritsumeikan Academy. If in the end the decision is made to make the pursuit of profits the most important goal, then at the very least our clients (our students) should be provided with a proper education. APU is claiming that inexperienced and non-qualified teachers will be supervised by faculty who are experienced, and so there will not be a problem. This is like running a hospital full of interns. Would you be happy to have a student intern performing a surgical operation on you, even if supervised by a good doctor? Patients would not be able to entrust their lives with any peace of mind to such a hospital.
Those lecturers who were fired by APU were all enthusiastic about their research, about education, and thought first and foremost for their students. Such faculty should be viewed by the university as a treasure. It is difficult to understand why it is that they now have to worry about how to put the next meal on their tables. An educational institute that cares nothing for people will find that people come to care nothing for it".
Japanese version archived in http://ac-net.org/rtm/No/108