抄録
Ms. Malala Yousafzai a teen-age girl shot calamitously on her way home from school in 2012 by the Taliban in Pakistan stated the following message for all the young people in the world at the United Nation. “We will continue our journey to our destination of peace and education” then “Our words can change the whole world” attracting the largest audience, and eventually concluded as “Our books and our pens, they are our most powerful weapons” (Tokyo Shinbun, 2013). On the basis of the same principle, we, the faculty members of agricultural science related institutes, set up the Sustainable Rural Development program in 2006 as a master’s course aiming to develop leaders for rural area development. With previous reflection on international collaborations in developing countries, participatory approaches were adopted instead of technology transfer methodology. Moreover, we planned a novel approach that can practically and holistically communicate these ideas on rural area development, or a post participatory approach. For the objectives above, the program provided practical and theological training at the graduate level as related to stable food production and supply, and alleviation of poverty in each participant’s home country under collaborations between the University of Tsukuba and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as a special 14-month course. There were numerous constraints such as language barriers to create subjects comprising four categories: basic, preparatory, advanced and specific courses in English. Under our efforts, these constraints were resolved and all subjects are still taught in the G30 program even though the Sustainable Rural Development (SRD) course ended in 2012. From the view-point of internationalization, the commencement of this program brought about changes for faculty members. Our experiences and challenges during the seven years of this program will be introduced as an example of implementation of a program for actions based on the role of universities in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).
