Japan will introduce a new national accreditation system for Japanese-language schools from April in an effort to ensure their quality meets the needs of the country's growing foreign population. Under the new system, Japanese-language schools will have to meet certain requirements on staffing and curriculum to receive the accreditation, while instructors at accredited schools will need to obtain new national qualifications for teaching Japanese. The changes come as the number of foreign nationals residing in Japan hit a record high of over 3.4 million in 2023. Despite there being some 220,000 Japanese learners as of fiscal 2022, standards among the around 2,700 Japanese-language schools in Japan vary greatly.

The government decided Tuesday on draft legislation to screen and certify Japanese-language schools to ensure their quality by setting standards including the number of teachers and educational content. In the legislation, eyed for enforcement in April 2024 after its enactment in the current parliament session, the government also requires instructors at certified schools to obtain a new national qualification for teaching Japanese. The government's strengthened surveillance over the Japanese-language schools follows cases of questionable management, such as with one operator which was found to be allegedly making illegal job arrangements for foreign students in 2017. This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software. Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites.

The immigration agency stripped a Japanese language school of its certification Wednesday after it found a staff member physically restrained a male Vietnamese student last October. The staff member at the Nishinihon International Education Institute in the city of Fukuoka was found to have restrained the student for several hours by connecting his belt to the employee's belt with a chain and padlock, according to the Immigration Services Agency. This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software. Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites. If this does not resolve the issue or you are unable to add the domains to your allowlist, please see this support page.

With the coronavirus pandemic choking social interaction and global travel, many of the nation's approximately 800 Japanese-language schools are struggling because new students have not been able to enter Japan. Since private schools basically rely on tuition fees, they are facing an existential crisis, people familiar with the matter say. Enrollment at Japanese-language schools halved to around 50,000 from about 100,000 in March due to graduation and other reasons, including coronavirus restrictions, they said. Japan has banned the entry of people from 100 countries and regions as part of efforts to curb the pandemic. According to the Justice Ministry, students can enroll in a Japanese school for up to two years.

NAGOYA – The approval rate for visa applications by nationals of countries such as Myanmar and Bangladesh to study at Japanese-language schools from April is sharply down from the same month last year, school operators in Japan said Wednesday. The plunge in the percentage of visas that were approved appears to reflect efforts to crack down on foreign nationals who enter the nation to work under the guise of being students. A survey by the Japanese Language School Association in Tokyo showed that student visas were granted to just 15 percent of applicants from Myanmar, down sharply from the 76 percent approval rate seen last year, and to 21 percent of Bangladeshi applicants, down from 61 percent. The success rate for Sri Lankan applicants was 21 percent, down from 50 percent. The survey drew responses from 327 of the 708 Japanese-language schools throughout the country and collected figures regarding applications for student resident status from April, when such applications peak with the start of the new academic year.

The Immigration Services Agency plans to strengthen its eligibility standards for Japanese-language schools, it was learned Saturday. The move comes as Japanese-language schools have been under fire for accepting many foreign students whose purpose is to work in Japan. The number of Japanese-language schools recognized by the government grew 1.6 times over the past five years to 749 as of April 2. The government late last year outlined plans to improve the quality of Japanese-language schools as part of efforts to bring in more foreign workers to the country. Under the agency's plan, the requirement for the average student attendance rate would be revised from the current 50 percent or more in a month to 70 percent or more in a period of seven months. Schools failing to meet the requirement would not be allowed to accept foreign students.

The Justice Ministry will impose new regulations on Japanese-language schools in October to ensure students who enter Japan to learn the language do not spend the majority of their stay working instead of studying. The change was implemented after one applicant raised the ministry's eyebrows by asking about setting up a school that would be in session for just half a year, presumably so students could use the longer holiday period to work. Under current student visa conditions, students can work up to 40 hours a week when their schools are on holiday and 28 hours when they are in session. Although there were previously no rules on how long a school should be in session, the new rule will require schools to be in session for at least 35 weeks a year. "The main duty of a student is to study," said Justice Ministry official Tetsuya Soga, who explained that the new rule is intended as a way to clarify that students should be putting their effort into studying rather than working.

A 29-year-old Nepalese student in Tokyo has found herself stuck in limbo with her dreams derailed, and the state of Japan's language schools is to blame. A survivor of human trafficking in the past, the woman, who wished to be identified only by her last name, Puri, came to Japan in 2014 as an exchange student. Brimming with high expectations at the time, she said she was determined to acquire a master's degree in sociology, with an emphasis on a subject dear to her, women's rights. Imagine her disappointment, then, when her dream was cut short by the Japanese-language school in Tokyo where she was studying. The school taught her only the very basics of the language, lumped her in with unmotivated students who frequently fell asleep in class and -- to her shock -- informed her that a vocational school was the only educational path it could prepare her for.

A shake-up of Japanese-language schools is in the cards as the government tries to lure more foreign students but faces up to the fact that many facilities are poorly run or even corrupt. According to education ministry officials, most of the problems stem from the fact that oversight of language schools has been handed over to the Justice Ministry, whose primary concern is not learning but immigration administration. Although the education ministry still has some say, oversight of school quality ends up falling between the cracks. "Increasing the quality of Japanese-language schools is practically a national policy but bureaucracy is getting in the way," an education ministry official said. "It's going to be difficult to improve the situation unless some serious wrongdoing surfaces."