The government will strengthen support for non-Japanese children in need of Japanese-language education with a planned doubling of the budget as part of efforts to ensure they are not missing out on learning opportunities, the education ministry said Thursday. Based on a survey conducted last year, the ministry estimates that more than 19,000 out of the around 124,000 non-Japanese children of elementary or junior high school-age in Japan do not attend school at all. It also found that there is growing demand for Japanese-language education in public elementary and junior high schools. In accounting for the lack of attendance, the ministry said some children and guardians may not possess sufficient command of the Japanese language and support also varies among local governments, with many only sending notices regarding enrollment in Japanese. The ministry allocated a budget of around ¥700 million ($6.6 million) this fiscal year for support measures, which included covering one-third of the labor costs of Japanese-language tutors and assistants to provide advice in children's native tongues.

The number of non-Japanese children at public schools who are lacking in Japanese language skills and who need remedial lessons hit a record 34,335 as of May last year, the latest survey by the education ministry showed Tuesday. The number, up 17.6 percent from the previous biennial survey conducted in 2014, accounted for 42.9 percent of the 80,119 non-Japanese children at public elementary schools, high schools and other public facilities across the country, according to the survey. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology conducted the survey covering about 35,000 public schools. The survey looks at children who cannot hold simple daily conversations in Japanese and/or those who have difficulty learning at school due to poor secondary language skills. "We have taken various measures, such as training teachers and allocating Japanese-language lecturers at schools. But the number of (foreign) children is growing so fast that we have been unable to catch up with it," Yasuhiro Obata, head of at the International Education Division of the ministry, said in a phone interview with The Japan Times.