I-GES International Graduate Program in Global Education Studies Doctoral CourseI-GES International Graduate Program in Global Education Studies Doctoral Course

  • Facebook

Dean’s message Outline

Let us create knowledge and innovations to explore the breakthroughs we need for education and a sustainable world together!

Dean of the Faculty/Graduate School of Education, Tohoku University
Prof.Kazuhito Noguchi
Prof. Kazuhito Noguchi

In 2022, Tohoku University celebrates the 115th anniversary of its founding and 100 years since becoming a comprehensive university. The Faculty of Education was established in 1949, although its pre-history can be traced back to 1922. At this time, the Faculty of Law and Letters was established, which was what allowed Tohoku University to become a comprehensive university. The Department of Education was founded within the Faculty of Law and Letters in the following year and later became an independent department. After a period of having a teacher training program, the Faculty of Education now exists as one of Japan’s top faculties of education that does not take teacher training as its mission and instead provides post graduate education with a doctoral program. In 2018, the Graduate School of Education reorganized with the Graduate School of Educational Informatics into the new Graduate School of Education. A main characteristic of this reorganization was an education and research institution that integrates both humanities and sciences into one single graduate school.

Education is not limited to the school setting but extends over space and time. From the time a person is born, he or she is involved in various life-long educational activities. Such activities have been historically continued and are carried out in different forms worldwide.

On the other hand, there are occasions when education is stalled. At the global level, many children cannot receive an adequate education, and many adults cannot participate in education. Even in Japan, there are people who, for various reasons, cannot fully participate in education. It is necessary to understand why this is and overcome these problems.

Furthermore, universities are places that nurture the human resources that will lead the society into the future. We need to constantly question the nature of the university as a place of a learning community.

We have a variety of approaches to dealing with these issues, including philosophical, historical, institutional, and psychological approaches, AI, robotics, big data processing, and many other approaches. We believe that the Faculty of Education and the Graduate School of Education are where you can proactively and collaboratively contribute to solving these issues.

In the graduate school, we also actively promote international initiatives. In collaboration with four universities in East Asia, we have established the Asian Education Leader Course. From the academic year 2021, students will receive credit for participating in this course. In addition, we have concluded an exchange agreement with the UNESCO Bangkok office to provide students with an internship opportunity at an international organization. This enables our graduate school to prepare learning opportunities for our students to be active on the global stage.

As a new initiative for the internationalization of the Graduate School, the International Graduate Program in Global Education Studies (usually referred to as I-GES) was established in April 2022. In October 2023, I-GES will welcome our first group of doctoral course students. This course aims to cultivate educational leaders who can build inclusive and equitable quality education in a global society, including Japan. To this end, we have prepared diverse and interdisciplinary educational, research, and practical activities through domestic and international networks.

We are looking forward to your applications. Let us create knowledge and innovations to explore the breakthroughs we need for education and a sustainable world together!