Professor Wangari Maathai is the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2004, she received the award for her contribution to environmental conservation through a tree planting campaign known as the Green Belt Movement. Professor Maathai visited Japan in 2005 and came across the Japanese word ‘mottainai (what a waste!)’. At the 49th (2005) annual session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, which was held at the UN Headquarters in New York, she introduced ‘mottainai’ as a slogan for environmental conservation activities. The Japanese word has been internationally circulated to promote the effective use of natural resources ever since.
Let’s think about resources available at UTokyo. Here I mean educational materials, programmes and financial assistance that support your learning. Go Global Gateway offers a variety of educational resources. I would like to introduce an incentive programme for TOEFL (Test of English as a foreign language) and IELTS (International English language testing system).
TOEFL and IELTS are internationally recognised English proficiency tests. UTokyo will subsidise the students taking the tests, which amounts approximately 25,000 yen for both TOEFL and IELTS, up to twice during the Junior Division and Senior Division (one time only during each division). Scores of TOEFL and IELTS are internationally accepted as evidence of English proficiency by a large number of higher education institutions (over 11,000 for TOEFL and 10,000 for IELTS). You can submit your scores when applying for overseas universities and / or international corporations.
Let me suggest one of the reasons why I encourage you to take TOEFL / IELTS. When people take the test, they all take the same test regardless of their English proficiency levels. There is no pass or fail. Scores of TOEFL range from 0 to 120 and IELTS is scored on a nine-band scale (0-9). If you take either TOEFL or IELTS for a couple of times, you will see, albeit roughly, the degree to which your English proficiency has improved. It would be costly if you paid the test fees every time. But UTokyo can help you reduce the cost.
Because of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, test centres of TOEFL and IELTS have been temporarily closed. However, TOEFL iBT ® Special Home Edition has been launched so that you can take TOEFL online at home. The application for the Incentive Programme for this test will be available in early June. Please keep your eye on the website of Go Global Gateway. You should make use of the educational resources available at UTokyo. Otherwise it would be mottainai.