Activity report
2007 Fiscal Year 10th Annual JAOS-FGER Meeting
January 30, 2008
at Mainichi Shinbun Headquarters in Tokyo
For the 11th time, JAOS and FGER (Foreign Government Educational Representatives) met in order to discuss overseas study trends and exchange information. To follow up on last year’s efforts, we requested that FGER provide a numerical summary of what countries and programs JAOS member organizations are sending their students to. Likewise, JAOS once again disclosed the number of overall students its organizations sent abroad in order to improve the understanding of industry trends. Last year, as many of our member organizations did not have a strong understanding of the purpose of this activity, we were only able to collect about 30% of our total student numbers. However, this year we were able to increase this number by 70%. This sensitive information has a direct link with sales figures and might be difficult for some companies to divulge. However, this activity is extremely important for growing a stronger study abroad industry. JAOS used the meeting as an opportunity to update those assembled on the recent state of the “JAOS Certified Counselor Training Course and Certification Test” as well as to announce the completion of its JAOS Guidelines. The JAOS Written Oath for Full and Associate Members was also made public. Attendees included 45 representatives of 33 JAOS member organizations, 14 members of 9 FGER institutions (American Embassy, Japan-U.S. Educational Committee, Australian Governmental Organization for International Education, Ireland Governmental Bureau for Business Affairs, Ireland Governmental Bureau for Tourism, New Zealand Embassy Section for Business Affairs, British Council, Canadian Embassy, French Government Office for Overseas Studies), and 3 representatives from 2 observing organizations (JASSO [Japan Student Services Organization] and JAFSA [Japan Network for International Education]), bringing the total number of participants to 62.