In January and February, the Association of Japanese Abroad held a seminar in Nagoya and Yokohama titled "Lifestyle Counsellors' Seminar for Japanese in Japan." At that time, I gave a presentation on the subject of "Supporting the Acceptance of Returnees - Focusing on Peru and Argentina." After researching the situation of Japanese South American children in Japan, the educational statistics of the two countries mentioned above, and support measures for returnees, ^I found that in Lima, Peru, an organization called KYODAI (part of a Japanese cooperative) has mental counselors and staff familiar with educational issues who deal with such cases of returnees, and they offer advice and counseling programs for a fee. ² However, I was able to confirm that only a portion of returnees are taking advantage of these efforts, and the number of returnees is not that large.

Many Japanese workers in Japan have brought their wives and children back home, but in recent years, the number of them starting families and having children in Japan is increasing. According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, more than 12,000 foreigners are born each year, of which 3,200 are Brazilian and 830 are Peruvian (2006). One concern is that one third of these births are illegitimate, meaning that the parents are not legally married or are single parents. However, there is no doubt that the trend is toward permanent residence. However, just because a child is born in Japan does not necessarily mean that they will be able to adapt smoothly to Japanese schools; it can be said that it depends on the child's family environment, the parents' educational level, and their attitude toward education.

According to Japanese language teachers in Peru, Brazil, Argentina, etc., even if parents leave Japan and enroll their children in local schools, most children are placed in lower classes in the level check test, and in some cases they may fail once or twice. ^3. The "bilingual" that parents envisioned is no longer a reality, but rather what experts call "semi-lingual" or "double limit" phenomena, both of which are half-baked and lack a mother tongue or learning vocabulary to base their learning on. Furthermore, misunderstanding and distrust between parents and children sometimes seems to drive children to delinquency. However, this is also true for Japanese children who are dropping out in Japan. ^4. Japanese media and experts often take up this situation, but it is a much more serious problem for Brazilian children than for Peruvians. In the former case, most children attend Japanese public schools, and the junior high school graduation rate is much higher than for Brazilians. The problem is the high school enrollment and graduation rate, which is less than 20% even when looking at individual statistics from local governments (it should not be forgotten that in the case of Japanese people, 96.7% of people graduate from high school) ^.5

According to the OECD report "Immigrant Children and Academic Achievement: An International Comparison" (Akashi Shoten, 2007), "There is no clear correlation between a large number of immigrant children and a large gap in academic ability between immigrant children and native-born children, but first-generation children (children of immigrants) have to adapt to a different society and school system and have a hard time acquiring academic ability, while second-generation children make the transition relatively smoothly, but in many countries there are still significant gaps between them and native-born children." It also states that "children of immigrants score lower than native-speaking children, but this also depends on the country. The score difference is large in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, but in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Macau (which have experience accepting immigrants), the score difference is not so great. It says that the difference is narrowing as the generation progresses, but in terms of basic mathematical skills, more than 40% of first-generation children in Belgium, France, Norway, and Sweden, and more than 25% in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, and Russia, do not reach level 2 (a level at which basic algorithms, formulas, and mental arithmetic can be used to perform routine interpretations), which will have a negative impact on future career choices and further education." It also states that "In the United States, children from families that primarily use Spanish score significantly lower than native-speaking children." It also clearly states that in most countries, "in terms of support measures to help immigrant children acquire instructional language proficiency, systematic language support based on a clear curriculum is not provided in preschool education, but educational support measures are available to improve instructional language proficiency."

Also, not many countries have bilingual programs, and even fewer provide supplementary lessons to help children maintain and improve their native language, with Sweden being the only country that does so. In many cases, such support is left to the discretion of local governments, and in the nine countries surveyed, it is considered a family or community issue.

Looking at these examples from around the world, support for immigrant children is aimed at improving their learning ability within formal public education, on the premise that the language of instruction will become their new "mother tongue." Also, as is clear from the Peruvian case, if they study their subjects properly, their adjustment problems are significantly alleviated when they return to their home country, but if they do not, the result is only frustration for both parents and children.

Japan often supports the children of foreign immigrants on the assumption that they will return to their parents' country of origin, but this is simply an attempt to avoid responsibility; it is the responsibility of a country that accepts immigrants to ensure that compulsory education is properly completed.

It cannot be denied that the multicultural coexistence projects of recent years have been implemented with a self-satisfied aspect by the local governments, international exchange associations, private organizations, universities, etc. that have implemented them, and in many cases the essential foreigners themselves are not present. In fact, even if there are foreigners, various "support measures" are implemented without understanding the various situations and backgrounds of the foreigners' countries of origin, so it is only natural that the desired effects are not achieved.

Notes:

1. South Americans in Japan by nationality and age (male/female) Immigration Bureau statistics as of the end of December 2007
Nationality/Total Male/Female 0-4 years old 5-9 years old 10-14 years old 15-19 years old
Argentina: 3.849 2.140/1.709 78/79 109/94 88/79 99/61
Brazil: 316.967 173.211/143.756 9598/8872 9734/9240 7465/7025 8676/7681
Peru: 59.696 31.723/27.973 1908/1885 2079/2026 1845/1799 1577/1489
23.000 17.000 19.000?

The number of children of compulsory school age (just from Latin America) is approximately 40,000, and according to statistics for their age group, the number of students who go on to high school and are currently enrolled is 19,000, but the prevailing estimate is that the actual number is between 10 and 20% of that.

2. According to a report (summary) by Director Eliana Yamashiro, Counselor Gladys Obara, and Teacher Pompilio Ramírez of Servicios Educativos at KYODAI, a Japanese organization in Lima, the support system for Japanese workers returning from overseas is as follows: 1) To grasp the situation, psychological tests, language (Spanish) and subject level tests, and interviews with parents are conducted, and in some cases, 2) a tutor system and follow-up (support for private tutors and subjects) are implemented. In parallel, intensive Spanish courses (for strengthening reading comprehension and conversation skills) and orientation for parents are also conducted.
The biggest challenge is to alleviate the anxiety of children and parents, but the following are some examples of difficult cases.
− Students who returned to Japan at junior high school level and have no Spanish language skills
- Children who have been alienated from their schools in Japan or have been traumatized by experiences of bullying. - Children who have returned to Japan alone, but their parents remain in Japan and are left in the care of relatives.
- Children and students who transferred to regular schools after returning to Peru without support in Spanish or academic subjects (high retake rate) In cases where children have taken Spanish correspondence courses such as "Unidos" in Japan, have parents' understanding, love and support, and are emotionally mature, there are no major problems. Children who have acquired solid knowledge of subjects in Japan are able to adapt to Peruvian schools at a surprisingly early stage, even if they do not speak much Spanish. In addition, the younger the children are, the better they adapt, and if they receive the above support, the retake rate (failure rate) in Peru is lower and the rate of progression to higher education is higher. There are also cases of returnees from Japan enrolling and graduating from local universities.

3. Peru (Ministry of Education statistics, 2007) Retake rate (failure rate) Public schools Grade 1: 4.7% Grade 2: 15.5% Grade 3: 12.7% Grade 4: 9.3% Grade 5: 7.6% Grade 6: 4%
Elementary school average: 9% Middle school average: 5.5%
The proportion of male primary school students is on average 1% higher, while it is lower in urban areas (6.3%).
Rural: 13% Poor: 12.4% Impoverished: 15.8%
Middle school Urban: 5.2% Rural: 7% Poor: 5.7% Poor: 7.4%
http://escale.minedu.gob.pe/escale/inicio.doStatistical site of the Ministry of Education of Peru Argentina (analysis based on the 2001 census)
6-17 years old: Out-of-school pupil rate (out-of-school status) Average 7%
Age 6: 3.9 Age 7-11: 1.5% Age 12: 2.2 Age 13: 4.4 Age 14: 8.1 Age 15: 13.9 Age 16: 20.7 Age 17: 27.6
School enrolment rate 6-11 years old (primary EGB1-2) 98.1% 12-14 years old (middle school EGB3) 78.4% 15-17 years old (high polimodal) 53.6%
Illiteracy rate: 2.6% for those aged 10 and over http://www.indec.gov.ar/ Argentina Statistics Institute All countries have a system of failing grades, and the rates of repeating and not attending school are high depending on age group and social class.

4. Number of students by native language nationwide Portuguese: 10,206 Spanish: 3,484 (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology)
Number of foreign students enrolled in public schools (elementary, junior high, and high schools): 72,751 (44,595 elementary, 20,119 junior high)
Number of foreign students who need Japanese language instruction: 25,411 (18,142 elementary, 5,978 middle school)
- By language used in daily life: Portuguese 10,206, Chinese 5,051, Spanish 6,670

5. Rates of non-enrollment and non-schooling of foreign children and students (including those with unknown residence) Survey by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and local government administration Council of Populated Cities (2007): 2-3% (primary and junior high school) Residence unknown: 15-20% Junior high school: 30-40% or more?
Foreign schools (private schools): over 100 (estimated) As a result of the recession, many schools are closing, and students should normally be transferred to Japanese public schools, but the number is not increasing as expected, and the problem of out-of-school children, mainly Brazilian children, is becoming even more serious.

© 2009 Alberto J. Matsumoto