Expanding financial and economics education | Finance courses for university students

We began offering finance courses at universities throughout Japan in 2001, with the goal of providing practical knowledge to students, the future leaders of the Japanese economy. In fiscal 2006, 548 people from Nomura Group lectured at these courses provided at 127 universities. The courses, based on the lecturers' personal business experiences, were attended by over 20,000 students. In addition to Japanese universities, similar seminars are provided at five universities overseas, including Thailand, where seminars have been held three times, and in China, Hong Kong and Macao. We look forward to expanding this program in the future.

We invited Professor Takashi Terachi of Kwansei Gakuin University to discuss the origins of Nomura Securities Co., Ltd.'s ("Nomura") finance courses.
"Nomura's finance course at Kwansei Gakuin University was launched in 2000, so seven years have already passed. It has developed into a firmly-established course, one of the leading company-led courses in Japan.
There were two reasons that we decided to offer this course. First, we had very few business professors with practical business world experience, and we really wanted to provide a more practical course by incorporating real world knowledge. Just when I was thinking about this, I had an opportunity to talk with someone from the Retail Strategy Department at Nomura. Students are eager to listen and learn directly from people actually working in the business world.
The second reason was my good luck of meeting someone from Nomura. As we continued to talk, we naturally came up with the idea of having a course with a "rotating lecturer" system. Nomura has many talented people, so I asked if we could have a different lecturer from different business areas teach the class each week, for a total of 15 lectures over the term. I assured them that the university would handle all course-related management and logistical matters. Nomura was extremely excited about the idea so together we developed a 15-week, 2-credit course. The finance course we designed was the first such company-led course in Japan to employ a "rotating lecturer" system. We kept information about the structure of the course open, which allowed other universities to replicate the system for other types of courses, first in the Kansai area, and subsequently throughout the country at other universities. The following year, Nomura offered the course at 50 universities and at over 100 universities the next year. Beijing University and a dozen or so other universities in Asia are now offering a similar course, and I have been happily surprised at the speed with which it has spread. In a way we were able to set a standard for a new type of company-led course in Japan.
We have seen a change in our students' approach since we launched this course. They are now eager to study finance, and the students who take the course are highly-motivated from the start."

Takashi Terachi, PhD (Business Administration) Professor, School of Business Administration Kwansei Gakuin University

Takashi Komatsu, a second-year student, talked about his motivation for taking the course. "A course is as good as its lecturer. When I learned that Professor Terachi had invited speakers from Nomura, I was reassured and knew I could rely on it to be good. I am glad I attended because I learned so much. The way the presentation was given was great, as we were shown an interesting video just at the point in the lecture when it is easy to get a little sleepy. I even sat in the first row because I was told the lecturer was good at explaining the state of the Japanese economy today and how finance could change the world."

Aki Yoshida commented, "I took the course because Professor Terachi (who is my advisor) was involved in it and because a friend of mine had good things to say about it. It was really helpful to listen to someone who is involved in business, and it was fun. I had very little interest in securities companies before, but things look very different after this."

Satomi Matsuo remarked, "I knew that Nomura was a leading financial services institution in Japan, but that was all I knew. I was glad to get to listen to someone who is actually working for Nomura."