冨田北島チーム

賛成立論

Let me start the Affirmative constructive speech. As you know, the University of Tokyo has announced that they will completely change their start of academic year from April to September. According to Mr. Junichi Hamada, the president of UT, ‘We will take this in 5 years.’ He also mentioned that this plan will encourage students to study abroad.
Let me explain why we need take this plan. As you know, in Japan, the academic year starts in April and ends in March. On the other hand, in many countries of the world, the academic year starts in August, September or October. This difference causes very serious problems to Japan. Now, more and more Japanese companies need not only Japanese employee but also foreign employee. They need to employ twice a year, spring for Japanese and autumn for foreigners. It is a lot of trouble because companies need to employ foreigners on the halfway of their financial year and they need time and money to do that. After taking this, the academic year enda at the same time both in Japan and many other countries, they will be free from these troubles and adjust their financial year to ‘global standard’ because most of freshman will be employed in autumn. The Federation of Economic Organisations (in Japanese 経団連) support the UT’s plan.
Secondly, it is convenient for both Japanese students who want to study abroad and foreign students who want to study in Japan. Now, though there are courses which starts in autumn in some universities in Japan, but according to Yomiuri News 1st of October, ‘30% of foreign students declined to enter the course for foreign students in UT and some of them went to Oxford.’ That’s because only few courses starts in autumn and they are uninteresting compared to Harvard, Cambridge or so on. But after taking this, all courses will start in autumn, so foreign students will be able to choose from a variety of courses. And Japanese students won’t have to mind to go abroad in the halfway of their academic year. That will be easier. So more and more foreign students will come to study in Japan, and more and more Japanese students will study abroad.
Third, by taking this plan, you all will have a half-year of gap term from graduating from secondary to entering university. You can study abroad, go to working-holidays, go on a trip, participate in volunteer activity and so on. Of course you can have a job and earn money by yourself. You also can study and prepare for university. You all can do what you cannot do in summer or spring holidays in a half-year of gap term.

反対立論