Inclusive Society / Increasing Number of Schools Offer Special Japanese Language Tutoring for Foreign Students Living in Japan

The Yomiuri Shimbun

11:01 JST, January 12, 2026

This is the fourth installment in a series of articles on coexistence with foreign residents and visitors.

***

The number of children who need Japanese language tutoring in school is increasing. As the nationalities of foreign students and places where they live have been diversifying, it has become an important task for schools to enhance systems and preparedness to offer Japanese language tutoring sessions for such children from overseas.

In mid-December last year, a teacher at Hikarigaoka Harunokaze Elementary School in Nerima Ward, Tokyo, asked a Chinese student in Japanese, “What day of the week is it today?” The student answered in Japanese, “Thursday. Tomorrow is Friday.”

The fourth grader, 10, was being tutored in the Japanese language by the senior teacher, Chihiro Konda, 46, in a classroom at the school.

In that day’s session, the Chinese student read out a fairy tale, “Omusubi Kororin,” which is usually used in Japanese language classes for first graders, and learned how to conjugate Japanese verbs meaning “eat” and “go” into polite forms.

The student came to Japan with her family in spring last year from China. Although she had been initially puzzled about living in Japan, she said with a smile, “I’ve gotten able to speak Japanese little by little. Now I can play with my [Japanese] friends, so it’s fun.”

At the elementary school, 66 of the 606 students are foreign nationals. The number has doubled in the past five years. The foreign students come from seven countries, including China, Mongolia and Nepal.

In the Hikarigaoka Danchi housing complex near the school, an increasing number of foreign residents have moved into vacant housing units that were vacated along with the graying of Japanese residents.

Since April last year, 12 children of foreign nationalities have enrolled in the school. As a result, there are 27 students who cannot sufficiently understand the Japanese language.

Konda is in charge of tutoring students in the Japanese language, providing one-on-one sessions for one hour to three hours weekly for each child. The foreign students receive Japanese lessons for daily conversation and as the national language subject.

Also, six instructors from the outside the school teach Japanese to the foreign students.

“Because their levels of Japanese language skills are different, I make individual tutoring plans and handle teaching for them,” Konda said.

The school’s principal, Tsutomu Naiki, 61, said: “Our response has not been able to keep pace with the increase of students from foreign countries. I hope the number of teachers in charge of tutoring will be increased.”

Although children with foreign nationalities are not subject to Japan’s mandatory school education, if parents or guardians want them to enroll in schools, publicly run elementary and junior high schools accept them free of charge under the International Convention on Human Rights and other international laws.

According to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, the number of students needing special Japanese language tutoring, including Japanese nationals, was 69,123 in fiscal 2023.

The number was a record high and has almost doubled in the past decade.

The ministry has assigned teachers in charge of the special Japanese language tutoring sessions for such students at a ratio of 1 per 18 students.

The ministry provides subsidies for hiring assistants who help the tutors and for dispatching assistants who can speak the student’s language and work as interpreters. However, there are still many schools and communities that face difficulty responding appropriately to the situation.

Students in need of such tutoring can be found throughout the country.

For example, foreign students enrolled in schools in Tsugaru, Aomori Prefecture, for the first time in July last year.

They are Vietnamese siblings in elementary and junior high school who were brought to Japan by their father, who works at a factory in the prefecture.

Because the city’s board of education did not have the know-how to provide Japanese language tutoring, it entrusted the work to Hirodai Multicultural Resource Room, a nonprofit organization. The NPO, which is based at Hirosaki University, has experience providing tutoring.

With the cooperation of the NPO, the board of education dispatches assistants for Japanese language tutoring to the elementary and junior high schools in the morning on weekdays.

Naofumi Makanae, 53, principal of the municipal Kashiwa Junior High School, which the elder brother of the Vietnamese siblings attends, said: “Although I am grateful for the assistance, it cannot be predicted when the number of such foreign students will increase. Teachers and officials of this school need to know-how for dealing with this.”

Gunei Satou, a professor emeritus of Tokyo Gakugei University who is an expert on cross-cultural education, said, “The places where foreign nationals reside have been expanding and, therefore, schools across Japan must respond to the need for Japanese language tutoring.”

“The central government should not leave everything to local governments or individual schools, and it needs to respond to the issue with clear principles and policies,” he added.