Beijing to End Quota on Resident Japanese Correspondents

Japan's Foreign Ministry notified the Nihon Shinbum Kyokai (NSK) in mid-July of the Chinese government’s decision to end its numerical restriction on Japanese resident correspondents. That quota now stands at 120 and is to be abolished in an upcoming rewrite of diplomatic papers.

Japan in June requested of China that it end the quota system. Japanese officials made the request after discussions with domestic Japanese media. By late June, Chinese officials had responded that they were prepared to end the quota system for resident Japanese correspondents.

However, Beijing will still maintain rules that restrict the places of residence of Japanese correspondents to the four cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chongqing. Further diplomatic talks will be needed if Japanese media desire to permanently post correspondents to any other Chinese communities.

Heated Debate Held at NIE Convention in Kagoshima City

The Newspaper Foundation for Education and Culture held its 10th Newspapers-In-Education (NIE) national convention on July 28-29 in Kagoshima City, Kagoshima Prefecture. A total of 804 people turned up for the convention on the theme, “Broaden and Deepen NIE ? In Pursuit Of High-Quality Education.” The participants comprised 668 school representatives and 136 newspaper delegates.

The first day of the meeting featured a commemorative lecture and a panel discussion on the theme, “Heated Debate: NIE over the Past 10 Years and into the Coming 10 Years,” marking the 10th anniversary of the annual convention. The discussions saw panelists and participants praise the NIE system for reinvigorating classrooms and enhancing the quality of education.

The convention began with a speech by foundation president Shin-ichi Hakoshima. He spoke of his high expectations growing out of last year's establishment of The Japan Society for Studies in NIE and the plan to launch an annual NIE Week, due to start on the first Monday of November, which he said will help give the NIE drive a new leap forward.

Hakoshima also emphasized the importance of close collaboration between educators and the newspaper industry, noting that such cooperation should go beyond mere donations of newspapers to schools. He proposed the joint study and development of educational materials for NIE activities, which he said would open up a new horizon for the NIE system.

Hakoshima’s address was followed by a lecture by Koichi Tanaka, an Education Ministry senior school inspector in the Elementary and Secondary Education Bureau. Tanaka said that NIE is an important educational activity for securing the quality of future Japanese society. He called for the media to work with educators to raise media literacy, to encourage children to learn in school how to write and edit articles, as well as how to actually make a newspaper. He called for tighter collaboration among parents, communities and educators.

During the panel debate, seven panelists -- all of them teachers at the elementary, junior high or senior high school level -- outlined key issues to be addressed in promoting NIE activities.

They noted that:

• NIE activities are currently limited to individual schools, with no prospects for a broader expansion,
  
• The NIE method still has no general theoretical or systematic consistency, and,
  
• Newspaper companies need to make their publications much easier to read and to donate more newspapers to schools incorporating NIE activities.
  
  

The panelists said there is a need for a theoretical underpinning of the effectiveness of newspapers in education, as well as for the standardization of the use of NIE. They also called for moves to provide free school access to news article databases.

From the floor, one participant referred to NIE activities in the United States in which newspaper companies work out NIE introduction plans tailored to the educational development of the children and provide them to educators. He called on Japanese newspaper firms to follow the U.S. precedent.

Acknowledging that the issue is ripe for further discussion, one panelist responded by saying that opinion is split on whether newspapers or teachers should take the initiative in designing educational programs for the use of newspapers.

As for results of the NIE program, one panelist discussed how newspapers have been used for students to study the issue amalgamations of neighboring municipalities. He said that the students developed a markedly more logical understanding of the issues by using newspapers, and that a survey found that 97 percent of them found the entire experience to be a useful one.

The same panelist said that to associate NIE with overall enhancement of education, we must (1) clarify the purpose and effect of the use of newspapers, (2) evolve NIE activities to the preparation of theses and debates, and (3) promote collaboration among the foundation, the NIE society and local promoters of NIE.

From the floor, one participant said that NIE activities had prompted students to adopt news issues and news concepts as topics of conversation among themselves and with their parents. Other participants reported successful NIE introductions and effects in English-language classes and at special schools for the handicapped.

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