Japan Boosts Int’l Program
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
Japan has been working towards global education with a national-level program for more than 20 years. The country introduced the ``Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET)'' Program in 1987 to boost the international education environment by inviting young foreigners from all over the world.
Like Japan's JET program, which has 5,508 members as of mid 2006, Korea also started the ``English Program in Korea (EPIK)'' in 1995 and currently about 4,000 foreigners teach English at schools here.
While EPIK focuses on English education, JET grants membership to assistant teachers for other foreign languages, coordinators for international relations and even sports exchange advisors.
Foreign teachers can work for the EPIK program as long as they want by renewing their contract. But JET allows foreign guests a maximum five year stay.
However, this is not all that differentiates the two international programs of the neighboring countries. Takuya Mitani, first secretary at the embassy of Japan to Korea, in an interview with The Korea Times, expressed disbelief that Korea has no organization or community representing foreign teachers.
According to the top secretary in charge of education, the JET program has created a well-organized foreign teachers' group, ``Association of Japan Exchange and Teaching (AJET)'' to facilitate a successful working relationship between JET Program sponsors and participants.
AJET has played a critical role in contributing to the Program's evolution and seeing that JET participants get the representation they need. It also holds face-to-face discussion forums every spring and autumn.
Unlike EPIK, which has no single recruitment channel of foreign teachers, JET hires foreigners in cooperation with wide support from each government body.
``JET is working with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations,'' the Japanese secretary said.
Moreover, the JET program has an alumni group ― the ``JET Program Alumni Association (JETAA),'' which was created in 1989 to strengthen and maintain the relationships developed between the JET Program participants. The JET Alumni Association has some 50,000 members from the past 20 years.
Meanwhile, like Korea, Japan also has moved to introduce a teacher evaluation system. Under the plan, teachers are required to renew their teaching certificates every 10 years through training programs and tests. ``Through the assessment, some teachers with poor achievement levels are ordered to teach other subjects, transferred to do administrative jobs or even leave their jobs,'' the top secretary said.