Photo/Illutration Higashikawa Japanese Language School’s building, which used to be an elementary school, in Higashikawa, Hokkaido, on June 22 (Daijiro Honda)

HIGASHIKAWA, Hokkaido--The nation’s first public-owned Japanese language school has employed uncertified teachers in a town praised as a model case for economic revitalization through acceptance of international students.

The Higashikawa Japanese Language School in Higashikawa, a town centrally located in the northernmost main island of Hokkaido, admitted on June 23 that seven staff members--about half of all instructors--were uncertified to teach students.

The Justice Ministry’s Immigration Services Agency of Japan is expected to look into the situation at the school.

Under the agency’s standards for Japanese language educational organizations, a Japanese language instructor must fulfill at least one of the conditions set up by the authority.

They include taking qualification courses at a university or graduate school, passing the Japanese Language Teaching Competence Test, and completing 420 hours or more of training sessions.

But the school said seven of its 15 language instructors working this fiscal year were not qualified. Six of them had previously been principals of nearby elementary and junior high schools.

“I have been aware that some instructors do not meet the requirements,” said Tomio Okuyama, the principal of the school. “But I thought it was acceptable since each of them is well experienced.”

Okuyama explained that the school “let uncertified people teach classes so that the certified teachers could spend more time on researching educational materials.”

“But I was naive about that,” he said.

According to the school, the town of Higashikawa has provided Japanese language lessons to visitors on tourist visas since 2009. Former school teachers worked as instructors back then, the school said.

But after the school formally opened as a public Japanese language school in 2015, those instructors continued teaching there.

The school also knowingly allowed uncertified staff members to teach classes as long as they were intelligent, the school said.

Okuyama said the school will immediately correct the situation and discuss the hiring of qualified people.

A representative of the immigration agency said: “A teacher who does not meet the requirements cannot teach. We will ask the school to give a report on the matter, and we will give guidance.”

The school has a capacity for 100 students. But the novel coronavirus pandemic has prevented some international students from entering Japan, and the school currently has 31 registered students.

Higashikawa, which also hosts a vocational school that has a Japanese language department, has a population of about 8,000, of which 200 to 300 are international students.

Town officials have attracted students from abroad by offering handsome scholarships.

The town covers half of the entrance fees and tuition fees for each student, and provides 40,000 yen ($375) a month as a rent subsidy.

To support the students’ lives, the town also gives each of them 8,000-yen worth of e-money every month.

The presence of the international students has not only lifted the town’s population but also heightened local economic activities and consumer spending.

“I will correct things that need to be corrected,” Higashikawa Mayor Ichiro Matsuoka said. “I will also discuss if the town itself can offer 420 hours or more training sessions to have the (teachers) certified.”

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