Japan has recently been looked upon as a new information society, and there is great demand for engineers in a variety of industries. The number of engineers available, however, is much too low to meet this demand. The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture in Japan has thus promoted the implementation of a new type of refresher education for engineers working in companies. To assess the situation, a survey was conducted by the Ministry in 1991 to determine the actual needs of companies for this new approach to education of their engineers. The results of the survey are detailed in this paper, and future issues are also discussed.

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