"I felt I may as well jump before I was pushed," she told Dr Archer. Another, who worked in a top-rated department at an elite university, "felt compromised by a 'greedy' and insatiable system, which renders success fragile and tenuous". The process of bidding for research grants was often seen as "unfulfilling and soul-destroying," according to Dr Archer. "They were highly critical of the pervasive pressure on academics to 'bring in the money' for its own sake, suggesting that this represents an 'anti-academic' ethos which is symptomatic of the attempt to make universities more corporate and 'business-like'," she writes.

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In April 2006, the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education issued a notice to metropolitan high schools, imposing a total ban on teachers from raising their hands to vote during teachers' meetings.

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In his book Paranoid Parenting, the sociologist Professor Frank Furedi describes the culture of fear that has led parents to restrict their children's movements outdoors. Professor Furedi complained that in 1971, eight in every 10 eight-year-olds were allowed to walk to school alone. Today it is thought to be fewer than one in 10. There has been growing concern that health and safety fears have stifled schools, encouraging them to ban traditional playground games such as conkers, snowball fights and cartwheeling, or prohibited pupils from doing the backstroke in swimming lessons. Last month, John F Kennedy Primary in Washington, Tyne and Wear, banned the sack race and the three-legged run from sports days – in case the pupils were hu

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According to Kyodo News, 25,411 foreign children are attending public schools in Japan:: A breakdown by mother tongue indicates the largest group of such children spoke Portuguese, accounting for 40.2 percent. A majority of them are thought to be Brazilians of Japanese ancestry. They were followed by Chinese speakers, forming 19.9 percent, Spanish speakers at 13.7 percent and Tagalog speakers at 11.4 percent. By prefecture, Aichi had the largest concentration with 5,030 children, followed by 2,631 in Shizuoka, 2,601 in Kanagawa and 1,913 in Tokyo. Many of the children do not speak Japanese as their native language, and a government survey states there is a need to provide more opportunities for foreign students to learn Japanese as a second language.

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TOKYO - Japan aims to more than double the number of foreign university students in the country by simplifying immigration procedures and hiring more English-speaking professors, an official said Tuesday. ADVERTISEMENT The government hopes to boost the number of foreign students from 120,000 to 300,000 by 2020, as Japan lags far behind the United States and major European countries. Some 580,000 international students study in the U.S., with 356,000 students in the United Kingdom, 265,000 in France and 248,000 in Germany, according to the Japanese education ministry. "The plan is part of our globalization efforts at Japanese universities," said Ryuichi Oda, an education ministry official. "We would like to provide as much governmental support as we can." The government plans to simplify immigration procedures and set up workshops on study opportunities at Japanese embassies abroad, Oda said. While calling on universities to hire more English-speaking teachers, Oda said, the government and schools will also increase the number of Japanese-language classes for foreign students.

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