FISJ – A Proposal

FISJ project focuses on Japanese-Filipino children and migrant children with Filipino parents who are living and working in Japan.

From Yukari Himeno's research entitled "The Education of Foreign Children in Japan", we have several proofs why internationalization in Japanese schools is not fitted to foreign children in Japan.  Under this category, migrant children with Filipino parents are included.

1. The aim of this paper is to describe how Japan’s education system treats children from other countries, especially in regard to junior high schools and the high school entrance examinations.

2. The 2003 report of Nyûkoku kanri kyoku (Japanese Immigration Bureau) showed that the number of registered foreign residents and their ratio to the total population in Japan are increasing. There were 1,851,758 foreign residents at the end of 2002, an increase of 4.1 percent from 2001 and 44.5 percent from 1993. The ratio of registered foreign residents to the total population of Japan (127,435,650) is 1.45 percent. Although Japan’s total population growth rate since 1993 is 2.3 percent, the growth rate of registered foreign residents was 44.5 percent at the end of 2002 (Nyûkoku kanri kyoku, 2003).

3. The number of newcomer children is increasing annually. (The newcomer group includes foreign residents who came to Japan with their families after the middle of the 1980s). However, sufficient statistical data about their number and circumstances does not exist, and so I have estimated the situation of newcomer children from two sets of data. First, from the 2003 statistics of registered foreigners who are from five to fifteen years of age, we can estimate that more than 74,000 newcomer children were studying in compulsory education in Japan in 2002, twice as many as in 1995.[5] Of these about 23,000 are Brazilian, 21,000 Chinese, 6,900 Filipino, and 5,600 Peruvian (Nyûkoku kanri kyoku, 2003). Although the total number of foreign students has not changed dramatically recently, the number of newcomer children is increasing.

4.  A MEXT (Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Science, Sports and Technology) 2003 report shows that 43.6 percent of the newcomer children who need to study Japanese have been in school for more than two years (MEXT, 2003a). Miyajima Akira, a professor at the Faculty of Sociology at Rikkyo University, points out that many newcomer children do not have adequate Japanese ability, and the number of newcomer children who have a problem with Japanese in junior high schools is increasing. Thus, studying in junior high schools and continuing their academic work after graduation will be a significant problem for them (Miyajima, 2001

5.  MEXT tries to teach Japanese students kokusaika (internationalization), but no programs exist in which Japanese students can exchange their culture and customs with newcomer children. The Central Educational Council of MEXT submitted a proposal for revision of the Fundamentals of Education Act on March 20, 2003 (2003b), but the purpose of the revision is to encourage Japanese to acquire an “international way of thinking” by cultivating “love for Japanese culture, tradition and patriotism” (MEXT, 2003b).

6.  The Japanese educational policy of kokusai-sei is a peculiar system, a proposal for an international way of thinking made without consideration for the newcomer children who live within Japanese society.

7.  The fundamental idea at MEXT is that “newcomer children do not have an obligation to study in Japan,”[7] and that if “they want to enter Japanese schools, we will accept them and treat as equally as Japanese” (2003d).

8.  The Japanese education system does not provide newcomer children with enough chances to “study” in Japanese.

9.  To summarize my research, there are mainly three problems for newcomer children: they cannot receive adequate instruction in Japanese, the international education system does not correspond to their needs, and the system of kokusai kyôshitsu does not fit their reality. Therefore, it is obvious that the Japanese education system cannot give newcomer children a proper opportunity to study in Japan.

Full text of report at:
The Education of Foreign Children in Japan

More about FISJ project at  http://www.fil-school-japan.net . May online survey po tayo para marami tayong data na makuha para sa ating FISJ project.  Suportahan po natin ang survey na ito na nasa http://www.tpmovers.org/filschool_japan.htm .