A rainy day in May

May supposedly marks the beginning of summer this side of the equator. Perhaps it does in sunnier climes but not in Muroran I'm afraid. For the past couple of days we have been treated to some torrential rain. Roads have been washed away, houses flooded and park golf courses remain resolutely unplayable. We were hoping to get the garden up and growing for this season, but we had to content ourselves with staying inside all day and watching some ducks paddling around the bedraggled daffodils.
Should I be working in a university back home (and I'm not too sure I would), thoughts would be turning to the end of term a month away and plans for the summer. Here in Japan, the end of term is still three months and my only thoughts are whether I can last that long.
Japan, unlike the rest of the civilized world, runs its academic year from April to March. This puts it in the fine company of such educational powerhouses as India, North Korea and eh, Oman. However, earlier this year Tokyo University, often referred to as the country's Harvard (though I think that very much flatters the former at the expense of the latter), announced that it was investigating the possibility starting their academic year in autumn from 2017. That is whiplash inducing change by the sclerotic standards of higher education here. And where Tokyo University leads, so the rest of us more lowly establishments must follow, no matter how much we mutter and grumble about the dictatorial unfairness of it all.
The change is being motivated by, well, fear essentially. Today was children's day and for the 34th successive year, the number of Japanese children under the age of 15 has declined. This in turn will mean less potential undergraduates for the universities and to make up for this ongoing (and, it must be said, accelerating) problem, Japan is looking overseas.
However, there is a problem as the rest of the OECD world by and large operates a September to June academic year. Damn those foreigners and their foreign ways! This means Asia's best and brightest are bypassing the land of the setting sun for the US and the UK. Of Tokyo University's student body, foreigners only account for 1.7% as compared with nearly 10% for Harvard. Here in Muroran the similar statistic 0.3%.
Hence the move, or rather the proposed move. Whether it comes to pass...I'll get back to you in 5 years time.