NIT Nagaoka College and TUAS to start cooperation

Text: Johanna Stenroos-Vuorio
Photos: Sanni Koskimies-Chiba and Makoto Chiba

The cooperation to be launched involves interesting opportunities for new openings in research and development activities.

Also exchange studies in Japan have been very popular particularly among the engineering students at TUAS. NIT Nagaoka College complements the Japanese partner network of TUAS with its selection of studies and enables a rewarding learning experience abroad for a yet higher number of students than previously.

“NIT Nagaoka College is an active developer of working life oriented education and they are also planning to join the CDIO network”, says Head of Education and Research Janne Roslöf from TUAS.

“Studying in Japan does attract more and more students. Last year, over 30 students from TUAS left for Japan for as exchange students”, confirms Head of International Affairs Anu Härkönen from TUAS.

The number of Japanese students interested in exchange studies in Turku has also increased year by year. The new agreement on cooperation with Nagaoka College will further increase these exchange opportunities.

Japan is one of TUAS’ priority countries in international activities. Thus TUAS has several partner institutions in Japan with which not only student and staff exchange but also projects are carried out.

“Last year, two projects were granted funding by the Asia Programme of the Finnish National Agency for Education”, explains Anu Härkönen.

The “CreICT – Creating New Possibilities for Well-being through ICT” project contributes to the development of the hands-on collaboration between the Finnish and Japanese higher education institutions in the health technology related research, development and innovation operations and education.

The “SOCPEDA – Empowering Social Pedagogic Child Welfare" project, on the other hand, focuses on the differences and similarities in the child welfare education in Finland and Japan. The project prepares the future training collaboration particularly in the development of the reaching and practices of social pedagogical child welfare work.

The delegation that now arrived to sign the Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation also attended the Japan Day that was arranged in Turku during the same week and learned about the wide range of collaboration activities the City of Turku carries out with Japan.

The Japan Day is organized in cooperation between all stages of education, which is why the organizing parties and participants included also the Japanese embassy in Finland, represented by Mr Hiromoto Oyama, as well as sports and recreation clubs and associations and schools from different parts of Finland.

“The event offered excellent opportunities for networking and learning about the Japanese collaboration of different parties", describes Anu Härkönen.

The educational institutes in Turku enable studying Japanese at all educational levels from comprehensive school to university. The Japanese society and culture can be learned as a hobby or as part of studies. These opportunities were introduced during the Japan Day which was this year a bigger event than ever before.