Japan:

[Harold Schiffman]

Ozaki: Let's improve language education for migrants
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN


2009/4/16

As of the end of 2007, some 2.15 million non-Japanese residents were
registered across the nation, accounting for 1.6 percent of the entire
population. The figure represents a 50-percent jump from a decade
earlier.  In some cities and towns, foreign residents account for more
than 10 percent of residents. Some small businesses and local
industries depend so heavily on foreign workers that they could not
function without them. The fact is, foreigners have become a major
pillar supporting Japanese society. But many are being battered by the
economic downturn.

The plight of unemployed foreign residents of Japanese ancestry is
particularly serious. In nine areas, including Hamamatsu and Ota,
Gunma Prefecture, the number of foreigners seeking employment during
the last quarter of 2008 hit 5,530, a six-fold increase from the same
quarter of the previous year.

Many of them have settled in Japan with their families. I am also
saddened at the sharp rise in the number of households that cannot
afford to send children to school because the parents are out of work.

On Jan. 9, the government set up a section within the Cabinet Office
to help support foreign residents and announced a set of immediate
measures.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare allocated nearly 1.1 billion
yen to help those of Japanese ancestry to land jobs. Some municipal
governments, including Hamamatsu and Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, started
basic Japanese language classes to help job seekers. In factories,
foreigners could work without using Japanese. But to find new jobs,
those who do not understand Japanese cannot even undergo job
interviews.

However, there has been little progress in expanding and improving
Japanese language education programs. This is because the government
has not made a serious effort to tackle this problem. In the absence
of a clear vision, it has relied on citizen volunteers across the
nation to take the initiative.

But emergency Japanese language lessons cannot be organized by citizen
volunteers alone. Even when they need to hire Japanese language
teachers, they can only offer meager pay.

Developing such programs will require, in addition to educational
experience, knowledge fostered through the teaching of Japanese to
foreigners and a cooperative network of people developing similar
projects.

The Center for Research in Japanese as a Second Language, part of the
National Institute for Japanese Language, can play a major role in
this area. For many years, the center has organized symposiums and
training sessions to help create a network of Japanese language
classes run by volunteers.

Ten full-time researchers have been conducting studies into the
promotion of Japanese language education. The information they have
accumulated over the last three decades could be very useful.

However, in the name of administrative reform, the government
submitted a bill to the Diet on Jan. 30 to transfer the National
Institute for Japanese Language to the National Institutes for
Humanities, an inter-university research institute corporation.
Enactment of the bill without modifications could have led to
scrapping the center.

Fortunately, with bipartisan support in the Upper House and the Lower
House, the bill was modified and cleared the Diet into law on March
31. Both chambers also adopted resolutions accompanying enactment of
the law. Thanks to the modifications and resolutions, the center's
function will be taken over by the inter-university research
institute. Under the modifications, the operations and functions of
the National Institute for Japanese Language will be reviewed two
years after the transition.

I highly appreciate those developments in the Diet, which showed great
discernment. I call on the government to implement the transfer of the
center's operations in good faith, paying respect to the spirit of the
law and the Diet resolutions.

The Commission on Japanese Language Education of the Council for
Cultural Affairs, under the jurisdiction of the Agency for Cultural
Affairs, is investigating the structure of Japanese language education
for foreign residents. I have also taken part in the deliberations.

As a first step, the government should establish a basic policy to
fully accept foreigners into Japanese society. If it must abolish the
center of the National Institute for Japanese Language, the government
should establish a policy research institute to replace it.

The new institute should serve as the research hub for education
policy proposals, as well as helping establish networks for mutual
support.

It should also engage in assessment of Japanese language proficiency
and personnel training. It will be indispensable for education centers
in local communities to hire experts on Japanese language education on
a full-time basis.

In South Korea, the government responded to an increase in the number
of foreign workers and international marriages by declaring a shift to
a multiracial, multicultural society. It enacted a basic law for the
treatment of foreign residents in South Korea in May 2007. Under this
framework, the South Korean government promotes policies on Korean
language education.

It is also time for Japan to encourage foreign residents to take a
more active role in society, not only for their own sakes, but to
enhance and enliven local communities. For this to happen, Japanese
language education is indispensable.

I urge the government to establish a master policy plan for Japanese
language education and rapidly build the systems to realize it,
including the enactment of legal measures.

* * *

The author is chairman of the Society for Teaching Japanese as a
Foreign Language.(IHT/Asahi: April 16,2009)
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200904160061.html

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