More and more of Japan’s universities are moving toward teaching their classes in English — not just for those on exchange programs, but for domestic students.
The University of Tokyo’s graduate school of engineering triggered a wave of online debate earlier this year when it announced that it would be teaching all classes in English “as a general rule” from 2026.
Many netizens argued that the move was unfair — most Japanese students have studied mostly, if not exclusively, in Japanese their entire lives, leaving them ill-equipped to learn university-level English fast enough, and a lot of faculty members may not be set up to suddenly teach advanced material in English.
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