Activity report
Advisory Consultation from the Liberal Democratic Party Special Committee for Increasing the Number of International Students
May 22, 2008
at Liberal Democratic Party of Japan Headquarters in Tokyo
Three members of JAOS – Chair man Yamada, President Hayashi and Secretary General Hayashi attended this consultative meeting hosted by the House of Representatives member and committee chair, Shimomura Hirofumi. In January of this year, Prime Minister Fukuda announced his party’s administrative policy of bringing 300,000 international students to Japan while speaking at the Liberal Democratic Party Special Committee for Increasing the Number of International Students. At the end of this month, the committee will release a mid-term report summarizing its investigations into how it will concretely enforce this policy and reach its stated goal. At the same time, the Liberal Democratic Party wants to discuss how it can simultaneously increase the number of inbound and outbound international students as what they referred to as a ‘two wheels of one cart’ policy. At the meeting, both JAOS and JAFSA presented points of concern and made suggestions as to how these concerns regarding the promotion of ‘Two-way Study Abroad’ might be handled. JAOS presented the following 3 points. Concern 1 – Lack of information and correct knowledge concerning ‘overseas study.’ Suggestion: Promulgation of the “JAOS Certified Counselor Training Course and Certification Test.” Concern 2 – Lack of understanding concerning the need for strong cross-cultural communication skills. Suggestion: Promotion of the importance of life experience and language study abroad programs, which form the basis of study abroad experiences. Concern 3 – Japan’s inadequate employment environment for students returning from overseas study. Suggestion: Provision of more employment support for new graduates returning from overseas study. In addition to numerous members of the Liberal Democratic Party Committee, meeting attendees included 8 members of the Bureau of High School Education within the Ministry of Education; 1 member of the Immigration Bureau; 1 member of the Public Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange Department of the Foreign Ministry; 1 member of the Employment Security Bureau within the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry; 1 member of the Economic Policy Bureau within the Ministry of the Economy; and roughly 30 staff members from the above-mentioned governmental ministries, bringing the total number of participants to 70. As a result of the meeting, which lasted more than 90 minutes, JAOS was able to express its organizational intentions to the attendees mentioned above. In the future, JAOS will continue to actively promote overseas study by appealing to these organizations.