Foreign children

Japan: Gov’t seeks more inclusive education for foreign children

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Asia/ Japan/ 07.07:2020: Source: english.kyodonews.net.

 

The government aims to improve its outreach to foreign children in Japan to provide them with learning opportunities as part of strategies adopted Tuesday to promote Japanese-language education.

A survey conducted last year by the education ministry yielded an estimate that more than 19,000 elementary or junior high school-age children of foreign nationalities in Japan do not attend school at all, including international schools.

In Japan, compulsory education covers nine years starting at first grade, from about age 6 to 15.

Foreign residents of Japan are not subject to compulsory education but the ministry urges public schools to accept and provide free tuition to any child who wishes to enroll based on international treaties.

The government wants to ensure that all foreign children in Japan have the same educational opportunities as local students.

The basic policy to promote Japanese-language education endorsed at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday says it is the responsibility of the central and local governments to offer Japanese-language education to foreign children.

Under the new policy, local governments will work closely with international schools and relevant nonprofit organizations to better assess the situation and offer parents of foreign children information about their educational options.

Amid growing demand for Japanese-language education both at home and abroad, the basic policy also affirms the need to create new licenses for Japanese-language teachers.

Education minister Koichi Hagiuda stressed the need to deliver best-practice regulation at the municipality level to guarantee learning opportunities for foreign children.

«Based on the basic policy adopted this time, we will strengthen the system» to promote Japanese-language education, he told a press conference.

The policy was adopted based on the law on promotion of Japanese-language education that took effect in June last year. The policy will be reviewed every five years if deemed necessary.

The law stipulates the central government must make legal changes and provide necessary financing to promote Japanese-language education, while local governments are responsible for crafting and implementing specific measures and policies.

It was a major turnaround of the country’s policies on language education, which have conventionally depended heavily on municipal and private efforts.

The legislation initiated by lawmakers was compiled as Japan introduced a new visa system in April last year to accept more foreign blue-collar workers to deal with severe labor shortages caused by the country’s rapidly aging populace.

The number of foreign nationals in Japan stood at record-high 2.93 million as of the end of 2019, up 7.4 percent from the previous year, according to the Immigration Services Agency.

The ministry’s first survey conducted on foreign children’s school attendance in May and June last year found 19,654, or 15.8 percent, of foreign children eligible to enroll may not be attending Japanese elementary or junior high schools.

In addition to education being not compulsory for foreign nationals, the lack of sufficient command of the Japanese language among some children and guardians as well as the varied quality of local government support are suspected as reasons for the result.

The policy was adopted based on the revision to the law on promotion of Japanese language education that was put in force in June last year. The policy will be reviewed every five years if necessary.

Source of the news: https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/06/8d735195fa85-govt-seeks-more-inclusion-in-education-for-foreign-children-in-japan.html

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School attendance unclear for over 21,000 foreign children in Japan: survey

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Asia/ Japan/ 01.10.2019/ Source: mainichi.jp.

– Local governments cannot confirm whether some 17% of elementary and junior high school-age foreign children registered as residents in Japan are attending school, an education ministry survey released on Sept. 27 has shown.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology conducted a survey this past May and June on whether 124,049 school-age children of foreign nationality registered as residents in 1,741 cities, towns, villages and wards across the country as of May 1 this year were attending school. The ministry also looked into the situations of Japanese-language education for school-age foreign children in these municipalities as of May 1 last year.

The survey results show local bodies cannot confirm whether 21,701 children, or about 17.5% of the total, are attending school.

Among these children, local governments are unsure whether 18,654 are attending school for reasons such as the children not being at their registered residences. For another 3,047 of the children, it is unclear whether they are attending school because they have moved out or left the country or are planning to do so. About 1,000 children are not attending any school, the survey shows.

In particular, there are numerous children in urban areas where local bodies cannot confirm their attendance at school. Tokyo has the largest number of such children at 8,040, followed by Kanagawa Prefecture south of Tokyo at 2,382, the central Japan prefecture of Aichi at 1,999, Chiba Prefecture east of Tokyo at 1,564 and the western Japan prefecture of Osaka at 1,516.

Municipalities have confirmed that 101,399 of the school-age children of foreign nationality are attending schools across the country. Of them, 96,395 are enrolled in public or private schools and special needs schools, while 5,004 children are attending schools for foreign nationals and other similar institutions.

The survey also revealed that many local bodies have failed to extend adequate assistance to foreign school-age children. Of the municipalities surveyed, 65.3% replied that they have not taken any particular measure to support foreign school-age children whose school attendance they cannot confirm. A total of 17% answered that they visit the homes of children who they cannot confirm are attending school to ascertain the children’s whereabouts and provide information on school enrollment, while 16.5% call the homes of school-age children if they are unsure whether the children are attending school. Some 12.3% responded that they continually send documents on school enrollment to the homes of such children.

Under Japan’s Constitution, Japanese nationals are obligated to make sure that their children of compulsory education age attend school, and local boards of education are supposed to investigate the whereabouts of schoolchildren who have been absent from school for long periods or whose whereabouts cannot be confirmed.

However, since the parents and guardians of non-Japanese nationals of compulsory school age have no obligation to send their children to school, the question of how to respond to such children who cannot be confirmed to be attending school is left to the discretion of local bodies.

In some cases, foreign children who have been absent from school for a long period are removed from registers or simply abandoned.

In the survey, a record 50,759 children across the country were deemed to need Japanese-language education — an increase of 6,812 from the previous survey in 2016. Of these, 40,485 were foreign nationals and 10,274 were Japanese. These children include 11,008 who cannot receive Japanese language lessons.

A separate survey that the Mainichi Shimbun conducted this past January on 100 municipalities that have large foreign populations showed that it was unclear whether some 16,000 foreign children were attending school, prompting the ministry to launch a nationwide survey.

Source of the notice: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190927/p2a/00m/0na/011000c

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Japan: Education ministry urges local governments to promote school enrollment of foreign students

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Asia/ Japan/ 10.04.2019/Por: Chisato Tanaka/  Source: www.japantimes.co.jp.

The education ministry urged local governments Monday to promote the school enrollment of foreign students, and to cooperate in the country’s planned April investigation regarding their enrollment.

The urging comes at a time before the arrival of a large number of foreign workers after the new visa system starts in April.

The ministry currently has no figures for the number of elementary- and junior-high-school-aged foreign children who are registered as residents and yet not enrolled in school. According to the Mainichi Shimbun, there are more than 16,000 foreign children who have not been confirmed as enrollees by the municipalities in which they reside.

“Expecting an influx of foreign workers from this April, the ministry considers this to be a good time to conduct research,” a ministry spokesman said.

A planned investigation will be conducted nationwide for the first time in April with the cooperation of each municipality and newly introduced immigration offices. The investigation would likely involve counting how many foreign children are enrolled versus how many are not.

In Japan, parents are obliged by law to send their children to school during their elementary and junior high school years, but that law is not currently applicable to foreign parents. The education ministry accepts foreign students who wish to enroll in school of their own free will under the International Covenants on Human Rights.

The notification that the ministry sent to local governments on Monday also requests that municipalities send school entry information to foreign parents and that schools be flexible on which grade children will be enrolled, and ensure that foreign students enroll in classes that meet their Japanese language abilities.

A similar notification was sent in 2012 after the amendment of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law came into effect — the time when the residence card system was newly introduced in Japan after the alien registration system had been abolished.

The notification’s goal was to make the handling of foreign students more coherent. Currently, support systems for foreign students vary widely in each municipality.

In Yokohama, for example, where more than 1,600 pupils are said to need Japanese-language assistance, schools with more than five students that have a low level of Japanese proficiency are required to attend a language assistance class called an “international class,” in which pupils learn Japanese, while their Japanese peers take classes that require high Japanese skills, such as literature and sociology.

Source of the notice: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/18/national/education-ministry-urges-local-governments-promote-school-enrollment-foreign-students/#.XKimzFUzbIU

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