An 88-year-old woman was conferred a doctorate on Saturday at a university in Kyoto city, making her the oldest person in Japan to get such a degree.
Kiyoko Ozeki, a visiting researcher at Ritsumeikan University, was conferred the doctorate for her thesis on origins and characteristics of cloth culture in ancient Japan, Xinhua news agency reported.
According to reports, Ms. Ozeki, born in Nagoya prefecture in 1929, was already 16 years old when the World War II ended and did not have the chance to go to a college.
After her divorce, she sold dolls to make a living and her craftsmanship got her a job at the women’s junior college of Tokai Gakuen University, where she taught home economics as assist professor till 1995, according to the report.
During her teaching, she developed an interest in cloth of ancient Japan’s Jomon Period and spent over 30 years visiting some 165 historical sites of the Jomon Period across Japan and researching the characteristics and history of cloth of that period.
Ms. Ozeki became a visiting research at the Research Centre for Pan-Pacific Civilizations of Ritsumeikan University from April 2015 and submitted her thesis last September.
Ms. Ozeki’s research “laid the foundation for research of the cloth in Jomon Period,” according to the university.
