AHMEDABAD: Studying in Japan is substantially less costly compared to US or UK. Moreover, knowing the Japanese language to pursue education in Japan is surely useful, but not mandatory at all. These valuable pieces of information were provided at the two-day Japan Education Fair being organized for the first time in Gujarat at Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA).
Daisuke Kodama, first secretary of the Embassy of Japan in New Delhi said that there are a total of 80 national universities, 90 public universities and about 600 private universities across Japan. Though it is always valuable to know some amount of Japanese, but it doesn't stand compulsory for a foreign student. Many universities across the country offer selected fields in English. As a part of the "Global 30" initiative, top 30 universities across Japan are inviting applications from students across the world to pursue higher education.
Kodama mentioned that it costs around INR 10 Lakhs to INR 13 Lakhs to pursue higher education in Japan. This cost goes at least two to three times higher when studying in USA or UK. Moreover, a lot of Japanese universities offer a complete tuition fee waiver for maintaining a global environment in their campuses.
Also present at the event was Mr Mukesh Patel, president of Indo-Japan Friendship Association in Gujarat. He stated that Indian students haven't taken much notice of Japan being an educational hub for higher education. He was particularly happy with the response shown towards this initiative, and deemed the education fair as being successful.
The second day of the fair included robotics workshops, wherein the participants were trained to make their own robots. One to one counselling sessions were also organized by representatives from 5 Japanese universities, for interested students.