OSAKA - Japan's education ministry recently devised guidelines tailored for nighttime junior high school Japanese language teachers in a first-time initiative to help them respond to the varying needs of students with diverse language backgrounds.
In fiscal 2025, a ministry survey of 62 publicly run schools across the country for people who could not finish compulsory education found that only about 30 percent of them had teachers dedicated to providing Japanese language lessons. The survey also found that teachers not specializing in Japanese language instruction were concerned about the quality of their lessons.
Some language teachers were also hampered by a lack of support from their schools, including limited access to educational materials.
The guidelines urge the schools to assess students' backgrounds more closely during entry interviews, create individualized plans covering career paths and periodically review those plans.
They also encourage schools to cooperate with local communities and provide schoolwide support for teachers, rather than leaving language teaching to individual teachers.
According to an earlier survey by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, 1,969 students were enrolled in Japan's 53 night junior high schools in fiscal 2024, about 60 percent of whom were foreign nationals.
Japan's basic education law requires nine years of compulsory education between the age of 6 and 15.
