The Student Exchange Programme between Okayama University and the University of Edinburgh : Sending Students Abroad

In February 1991, the Faculty of Economics, Okayama University entered into an agreement with the Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences, the University of Edinburgh, to promote student exchange and academic co−operation. In this paper, we mainly focus on the procedure for sending students on this exchange programme. As it was the first exchange programme that the Faculty of Economics was engaged in, the teaching staff involved had to face problems one after another until the programme got off the ground. The insufficient English language proficiency of the students was always one of the majour concerns. However, spending one academic year abroad broadened students’ outlook remarkably and almost all of them came back to Okayama satisfied with their experiences in Edinburgh. Until 2000 when a faculty−to−faculty agreement promoted to a university−to−university one, as many as 23 students of the Faculty of Economics had been sent to Edinburgh. The programme can be said to have achieved satisfactory results to some extent. So it is worth while examining this experience gained during the past ten years in 1990’s in order to use it for enhancing internationalisation at the Faculty of Economics for the future.

論説 (Article)