Panel withholds decision on Kake school plan for now

August 26, 2017

TOKYO- A Japanese government panel on Friday withheld for now its decision on whether to approve a plan to open a veterinary medicine faculty by Kake Educational Institution at the center of a favoritism scandal.

The Council for University Chartering and School Juridical Person recommended that education minister Yoshimasa Hayashi approve 59 plans to open public and private universities, graduate schools and faculties, and make changes to such entities.

Meanwhile, the council withheld decisions on 10 higher education school plans, including the one for Okayama University of Science to set up the veterinary medicine faculty in a special deregulation zone in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, western Japan.

The university is under the wing of Kake Educational Institution, run by a friend of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The council is expected to decide in October or later whether Kake's plan should be approved.

The ministry has not approved the establishment of a veterinary medicine department for five decades, in view of the supply-demand balance for veterinarians in the country.

If the department is established in April 2018 as Kake currently plans, it would be the first new one in Japan since 1966.

The council is believed to have told the school operator to revise its plan in order to correct problems related to education content.

The council will make its decision after the government in January this year picked Kake as the operator of the animal health department in the Imabari special zone.

On Friday, Kake declined to comment, saying the screening process for its plan is continuing.

The 59 plans recommended for approval by the minister included ones to open municipal Komatsu University in Ishikawa Prefecture and privately run Ikuei University in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture. Jiji Press