三〇年ぶりの帰国で見た日本の国立大学

国立大学法人のかかえる問題 (平成一六年九月一三日 提出)

抄録

Having served 27 year on the International Court of Justice in Holland, after a nearly 30-year blank I returned home to learn to my surprise about the recent reform being conducted of the national university system in Japan.
In April 2004, Japan's national universities were “incorporated.” Upon my return, I was appointed a member of the Administrative Council and chairman of the President-Selection Committee of Tohoku University, where I had held a professorial chair of international law before assuming a judgeship in the World Court.
I am flatly opposed to the government's policy of incorporating the national universities, which have a proud tradition of over more than one century. The current reforms will not make the university system better, but worse. Hoping to strengthen university-industry collaboration and promote venture businesses, the government has gotten carried away in trying to reshape universities into something resembling corporations. Based on my experience with the several month of ongoing university reform, I take a critical look at the organization and operation of the“new”universities and elucidate the contradictions and shortcomings of the reform program.
I point out three reasons why universities are withering under the new system. The first is that the policy has all but caused liberal arts professors, who are responsible for teaching basic education in the university-that is, the bedrock of one's philosophy-to flee the scene. This, in turn, is causing the extinction of the liberal arts college. The second is that a policy of standardization under a rubric of equalitarianism among academic disciplines is causing a loss of differentiation between them and a watering down of their unique characteristics. In these new universities, it is no longer possible to differentiate advanced research in fields I refer to as “bedrock philosophy” -such as, mathematics, physics and science or philosophy, literature and history-from specialized research in technincal and applied sciences. The third is that the current reforms relevant to legal education are essentially meaningless. Legal education should provide young people a full 3-year curriculum in law after they have received a liberal arts education. The concept of the new law schools is built upon the half-baked infrastructure that has constituted jurisprudence education. It is as superfluous as building a roof atop a roof.