Myanmar opens first training course for Japanese-language teachers

YANGON – Myanmar's first-ever training course for Japanese-language teachers is opening as part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plan to invite more Asian youths to work in Japan. The initial phase of the training program starts this month at the Yangon University of Foreign Languages for students majoring in Japanese and for teachers from private Japanese-language schools, the Japan Foundation said. The foundation, a government-backed institution that carries out international cultural exchange programs, picked Myanmar as the third country in which to offer such training courses, after India and Vietnam, following Abe's speech at an international conference in Tokyo in 2017 where he said Japan would choose three locations in Asia to nurture Japanese-language teachers. Noriyuki Matsukawa, executive director of the Japan Foundation Center for Japanese Language Testing, said the yearlong program aims to support Myanmar's human resources through Japanese-language learning, recruit a new kind of teacher and improve current teachers' skills. "Myanmar has high demand for Japanese-language proficiency," he said, adding that the number of people in Myanmar taking the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test nearly tripled from 13,099 in 2016 to 37,786 in 2018.