[Futue direction of three-year educational establishments for students of medical technology]

The medical laboratory technologist education currently offered at four state run junior colleges will be upgraded to higher education as all those junior colleges become universities in 2004. It has already been decided that several private junior colleges and vocational schools are to be upgraded to universities as well. Furthermore, the course will not only be offered in undergraduate universities, but also on a postgraduate level, increasing the number of medical laboratory technologists with a master's degree or a doctorate. This reform is perhaps due to a demand for medical laboratory technologists of higher quality because of such social conditions as a highly-sophisticated information society, advancement in healthcare and medicine, and transition from volume to quality. It is also a measure for securing further capacity by seeking adequate human resources because of the declining population in the 18-year-old bracket, due to the declining birth rate. In such a condition, the direction three-year educational establishments must take is to nurture human resources with qualities that compare favorably with university graduates. As ways of accomplishing this, we could focus on practical technological education at vocational schools with the educational period set at four years, or recruit and train university graduates with rudimental abilities, as they do at specialist postgraduate schools.