KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Globalization in Japan — Challenges and Prospects

Abstract: Japan’s demographic changes over the past decades have prompted a sea change in immigration policy. Once such effect has been the influx of foreign labor to address labor shortages in various sectors of the economy. The purpose of the speech is to examine the recent situation of foreign workers in Japan who have been impacted by these immigration policies, particularly considering the coronavirus pandemic. The speech examines the working and living conditions of foreign labors, provides insight into the challenges and trends Japan has to face at the current stage, and concludes that to date, the new immigration system has failed to live up to expectations. If Japan wants to accept more foreign workers to boost its economy and realize faster progress in globalization, more efforts need to be made at both the national and local levels.

Professor Philipp Gonon

University of Zurich, Switzerland

Philipp Gonon studied Law and Journalism from 1974 until 1976 at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Afterwards he continued studying Pedagogy at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. From 1986 until 1992 he became research assistant and lecturer at the Institute of Pedagogy of the University of Bern, Switzerland where he finished his postdoctoral lecture qualification in 1997. From 1999 until 2004, Gonon was appointed to Full University Professor at the Chair of Vocational and Operational Further Education at the University of Trier in Germany. Since 2004, Gonon has held the Chair of Vocational Education and Training and Vocational Teacher Training at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Gonon has done research about Georg Kerschensteiner, the relation of schooling and vocation and about the European educational reforms. He specialised in the areas of historical and international comparative educational research. In addition, Gonon does research in quality assurance and evaluation, modularization in Vocational Education and he publishes about Philosophy and Theory of Vocational Education.

Professor Jon-Chao Hong

National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

Jon-Chao Hong has received his doctoral degree in Education from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and is currently working as a Chair professor in the department of industrial education at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). As the director of Digital Game-based Learning Laboratory (GBL), he has developed 9 web games, 24 educational Apps and VR for skill training and language learning.
As the secretary general of Taiwan Creativity Development Association, he also organizes several creative contests relevant to STEAM, such as PowerTech Contest to invite elementary, junior and senior high school students to produce robots or miniatures in the morning and using these to compete in the afternoon to ensure students’ hands-on creation without parents or teachers’ assistance. As the executive secretary of International Exhibition for Young Inventors (IEYI), he also promotes the innovative contest to give students an opportunity to stimulate their science inquiry abilities, and also cultivated students’ creativity and thinking attitude of STEAM. In addition, he has published a number of academic articles in international journals related to digital game-based learning and thinking skills and creativity about 45 articles on Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) journals and received the Outstanding Research Prize from Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan.