The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan (MEXT) has announced the selection results for the 2nd round of Tobitate! Ryugaku Scholarships for senior high school students (for more details on these scholarships please visit: https://education-services.britishcouncil.org/sites/siem/files/field/file/news/TOBITATE%21%20Ryugaku%20Scholarship_SHS_2nd_info.pdf ). According to MEXT, the number of applications more than tripled from 514 last year to 1,750.  510 students  were selected through paper screening and an interview. These scholarships will support Japanese senior high school students who will study abroad for between 14 days and 1 year.

31 of the 510 awardees will study in the UK. Compared to last year, the UK’s share slightly dropped from 7.5% to 6.1%. The US and Canada remain strong as destination countries with a combined share of around 45%. The results suggest that scholarships for language study (2-3 weeks) attracted the most applications (677 applications; 38.7% of all applications) which demonstrates the strong demand of such programmes in the market. It is also notable that scholarships for sports and art courses received 3.5 times more applications compared to last year.

The Tobitate official website now features stories of a student who joined a 6-week summer programme in fashion (http://www.tobitate.mext.go.jp/hs/program/channel/1.html) and a student who attended a 2-week business summer school (www.tobitate.mext.go.jp/hs/program/channel/5.html) in the UK.

The third round of applications is scheduled to start from October 2016.

Analysis:

MEXT published a list of study abroad agents on their official website this year to help school teachers and students find courses and apply for scholarships. However, it seems that many agents were actually less keen to proactively support students for this particular scholarship scheme than expected because, from a business point of view, it involved the risk of students cancelling their study abroad plans when their application is not successful. Without the support of agents, students heavily relied on teachers to find courses.

The British Council in Japan will endeavour to raise the profile of programmes provided by UK institutions, including English language courses, working closely with MEXT as well as schools. Any relevant market opportunities will be publicised through the SIEM website.