Kio University

Kio University is a private university in the town of Konyo in the Nara Prefecture. It is also sometimes known as Sio and like many Japanese institutions has its earliest roots in education for women, starting in 1946 as Nara Prefecture Approved Fuyuki Bunka Fashion College. Going through the standard progression of High School and Junior College, it attained university status and went co-educational in 2003.

With a roll of just over 2,000 students in 2019, it operates from a quiet campus in a residential area in the town of Konyo which has a population of about 35,000 people. It was briefly capital of Japan in the 7th Century AD and is renowned for its concentration of megalithic tombs.

With principles of "Building Virtue", "Learning Knowledge" and "Creating Beauty", it emphasises the practice of action learning based on information technology and collaborative work. Its faculty of health science incorporates departments of physical therapy, health nutrition, nursing, environmental design and midwifery. The faculty was opened in 2012 with the slogan "contributing life and creating the future".

In 2003 it was the first university in the Kansai region to create a department of physical therapy, whose four-year undergraduate course includes a common first year with health nutrition, intended to build a core of common knowledge and ability to work in teams across the disciplines. In recent years 97 per cent of graduates have gone on to work in hospitals.

In 2019 it opened a new department of clinical cytology to train laboratory technicians. Meanwhile new developments for 2020 include the contemporary education department’s English education course which offers student teachers the chance to spend half of their second year in Canada, the UK or New Zealand.