Getting the parents and teachers involved
Teachers line up for the closing ceremony
In 2004 an article on BBC website Iwao Nakatani was quoted calling for for "mass immigration, opening Japan to different faces and influences" . This year the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare released a report showing an all-time-high in foreign registered labourers, as mentioned in a posting on Japan Economy News and Blog . According to data on the same webpage, 52.5% of the labourers were employed at automakers, appliance makers and other manufacturers. From a personal perspective, walking in Osaka I have noticed that many of the shops have foreign staff. As one can see in the picture above, foreign teachers are not an uncommon sight at a Japanese school either.
The BBC article also mentioned the issues of discrimination and tensions between Japanese and foreign work forces, but it would be interesting to find a more recent article on that as there is an obviously increasing number of foreign workers coming to Japan, therefore maybe a change in the situation as well.
The BBC article also mentioned the issues of discrimination and tensions between Japanese and foreign work forces, but it would be interesting to find a more recent article on that as there is an obviously increasing number of foreign workers coming to Japan, therefore maybe a change in the situation as well.
1 comment:
Interesting issue that you bring up, but why no text describing the actual photos?
The articles you have linked to are dealing with unskilled labor, so I don't think the teacher example fits. Also, except for special circumstances, foreign teachers are temporary special guests. Japanese teachers are considered public officials and I don't think a foreigner can hold such a post. How do you know the teacher pictured doesn't teach English?
There is still much tension about the idea of allowing foreigners into Japan to work (and fill posts that the Japanese can't or don't want to). This is perhaps one reason that Japan has been working so hard on developing robots. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? But companies are designing and making robots to help cope with an aging population.
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