On July 30, a ceremony was held at the auditorium of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to send off the students who had been selected for the seventh round of the Japan Public-Private Partnership Student Study Abroad Program, which is commonly referred to as “Tobitate! Young Ambassador Program.” The program is aimed at encouraging highly motivated and talented students to study abroad by providing scholarship, while seeking to raise 20 billion yen by 2020 through collaboration between the government and the private sector, with the goal to sponsor 10,000 students in total.

The ceremony started with remarks by the MEXT Vice Minister and a representative from one of the sponsoring corporations, followed by a speech by an alumni of the Tobitate program. Then, students representing each course of the program were invited to the podium to speak in front of their fellow Tobitate students. Among the speakers was a TUA graduate student, Keiko Obai, from the Department of Vocal Music.

Backed by her belief that art songs have a power to enrich people’s minds with their words and tunes, she has decided to go to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München (University of Music and Performing Arts Munich) on an exchange program between the German school and TUA, where she will study traditional German art songs. In her speech, she said that this was an important step to achieving her goal to fully understand the beauty of the vocal music and disseminate it across Japan in order to restore spiritual richness that is hard to find in today’s society. She delivered her speech with full of smile on her face, while singing Furusato,(meaning home in Japanese), which received a warm applause from the audience.

The ceremony concluded with a message by the Project Director, who encouraged the students to become unique and different in their own ways, accompanied by a commemorative gift, which was handed over to the representing students by the Vice Minister.

After the ceremony, the participants attended a reception, where the students were divided into their respective Tobitate courses to exchange ideas and information on their study abroad plans and destinations.

This program is such an encouragement and help for those who aspire to study abroad, and the new round of applications is now open.

For more information, please visit: Tobitate! Info

Note: Applicants must hold Japanese citizenship to apply to this scholarship program.

Keiko Obai of TUA delivers a passionate speech

Seventh-round Tobitate students listen to the words of encouragement from the Project Director

Representing students receive a commemorative gift

TUA students express their excitement for studying abroad

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