Serik Meirmanov, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific College, Japan

Hailing from Kazakhstan, Serik Meirmanov made his method into the Japanese larger schooling sector and cemented his work on the centre of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific College in Beppu’s worldwide schooling technique. A graduate from a Japanese college himself, his experiences as a world scholar affect his job day by day. After a busy NAFSA, he chatted to The PIE. 

What was your first job in worldwide schooling?

My first job was at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific College, the place I’m now. I began as affiliate professor for the general public well being administration graduate program. I’m now dean of educational affairs on the identical establishment.

What do you want most about your job?

Whereas being a dean of educational affairs comes together with loads of duties and challenges, it offers a way of fulfilment and contribution to form the academic expertise for college kids, and supply alternatives for the skilled progress of college members.

In case you had a magic wand, what would you modify?

If I had a magic wand, I might make it so that each particular person in want has a magic wand. In different phrases, I largely simply want that in societies all over the world, every weak particular person – particularly kids – would have equal alternatives, akin to entry to schooling and good healthcare.

 What are your high 5 priorities?

I feel… equity in choice making; respect for the opposite individuals’s opinions and empathy; steady self-development – psychological, non secular, and bodily; significant relationships with household and associates; and constructive perspective and resilience.

Finest work journey?

We did a subject journey with college students, the place they carried out surveys for his or her program analysis, within the UK.  It was nice to see how Japanese language base college students utilise their English and analysis expertise in speaking with locals in London.

“Sustaining attractiveness for college kids is among the most vital points”

How did you uncover the worldwide schooling sector?

A world schooling program allowed me, after graduating from the College in Kazakhstan, to go and achieve a PhD diploma in Japan. This expertise helped me realise the advantages of a world schooling. Since then, my curiosity has developed into analysis and now, by way of the character of my work, I’m instantly concerned within the means of selling worldwide schooling at our college.

One scholar’s life altering story?

It’s an actual circle of life. Certainly one of my college students, throughout my lectures, grew to become eager about well being science and selected a profession in healthcare. She went to medical faculty, accomplished her PhD and gained expertise at one other college, and now she shall be educating the identical topic in the identical lecture corridor that influenced her profession.

Largest problem to your career?

Navigating the upper schooling in Japan might be the most important problem, because of the lowering variety of kids; the nation is experiencing a interval of accelerating competitors. Due to this fact, sustaining attractiveness for college kids is among the most vital points.

What’s the greatest worldwide schooling convention and why?

For us, the worldwide collaboration supplied by NAFSA, EAIE and APAIE is essential. They’re conferences that actually present a platform for specialists from larger schooling establishments to speak about internationalisation and college students’ mobility.