Gunma Prefectural Women’s University

Gunma Prefectural University is a public university in the town of Tamamura, Gunma, Japan. It was originally established in 1980 in the city of Maebashi and relocated to Tamamura in 1982. It was created to cater the increasing number of women in the Gunma prefecture wishing to continue onto higher education. As a way to stop them from heading outside the prefecture to go to university, the people of Gunma decided to establish a university for women. It began with three departments: Japanese literature, English literature and aesthetics and art history. Since then it has introduce the faculty of international communication as a way to keep up with the many social changes in Japan. The first graduate programme was introduced in 1993 and there are now five different graduate programmes on English language instruction has also increased in recent years. The university hosts international exchanges from a number of universities including Huron University and Soochow University among others. All exchange students are assigned two home students, known as tutors, that help them with the Japanese and any other queries or issues they may encounter. A Japanese language course for exchange students was established in 2007.