Education Government to launch trial Japanese classes for foreign children

Japan's education ministry plans to launch a pilot programme in fiscal 2027 for children with limited proficiency in Japanese. The idea is to provide basic language instruction before and shortly after they enter school, helping them adjust more smoothly to daily school life and routines. The project is part of a broader push to introduce nationwide "pre-classes" with a standardised curriculum in the long term.

A ministry survey conducted every two years found that, as of May 2025, a record 84,759 children of foreign nationality and other backgrounds required support in Japanese. The figure covers public elementary, junior high, and high schools, as well as special needs schools. It is almost double the 43,947 students recorded in the 2016 survey. The ministry presented the plan during a 25 May meeting of an expert panel on the education of foreign children. Some municipalities with large international communities, including Yokohama and Hamamatsu, have already developed similar programmes, although the content and duration differ from place to place.

The programme is being introduced against a backdrop of growing strain on the education system, including a shortage of teachers that has reportedly left around 10,000 children without the Japanese-language instruction they need. The ministry's survey, carried out through local boards of education, examined how schools are dealing with students unable to hold everyday conversations in Japanese. Public schools with at least one such student made up 39% of the total, or 12,668 schools. Another 4,329 schools, roughly 13%, had five or more students needing support. In 28 schools, the number exceeded 100. The figures also showed the issue spreading more widely across the country. Compared with the 2023 survey, the number of municipalities with no such students declined, while those with 20 or more increased by about 10%.

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Meanwhile, it also came to light that among approximately 178,000 foreign children of elementary to high school age, 13,902 were classified in academic 2025 as "school attendance not confirmed" because their enrollment status could not be verified. This figure represents an increase of 1,818 individuals from the previous year. The largest group, totaling 8,013 children, were those whose school enrollment status could not be confirmed by local governments due to reasons such as not residing at their registered address.

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