-
·
Nursing candidates get online help
A website that assists foreign students studying Japanese has been updated to help nurse and caregiver candidates from Indonesia and the Philippines learn to read kanji Chinese characters and what Japanese medical and care terms mean. A group led by Yoshiko Kawamura, a professor of Japanese language teaching at Tokyo International University, has added Indonesian…
-
·
Education ministry planning to improve quality of teachers
The education ministry plans to improve the quality of teachers by drastically overhauling the current licensing system and lengthening the time required for teacher training, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry will seek advice on the matter as early as June from the Central Council for Education, an…
-
·
Japanese immigration policy: A nation’s bouncers
A suspicious death in police custody Abubakar Awudu Suraj was already unconscious when the cabin crew of EgyptAir MS965 saw him on board, before the Tokyo-to-Cairo flight. Shortly later he was dead. A Ghanaian who had lived illegally in Japan, Mr Suraj was being deported on March 22nd, when he was lifted and forced onto…
-
·
Suicides over lost jobs up sharply
Suicides in Japan in 2009 stayed above 30,000 for the 12th consecutive year, but those linked to job losses spiked, defying claims that the economy is on the mend, a National Police Agency survey showed Thursday. The number of suicides in the reporting year totaled 32,845, up 1.85 percent from the preceding year, the NPA…
-
·
How the homeless are fighting Nike in Shibuya’s Miyashita Park
Homeless people and their advocates are battling plans by sportswear giant Nike to fund the renovation of a dank, squatter-friendly ‘park’ into a sports ground for youth Less than a block away from where the fashionistas gather to shop for designer brands in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, a flight of stairs leads to a narrow park…
-
·
Hunger strike at immigration center
About 60 detainees at the East Japan Immigration Control Center in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, have been on hunger strike since Monday to seek better treatment, a Tokyo-based volunteer group member said Wednesday. Meanwhile, center spokesman Hiroki Shimizu confirmed to The Japan Times that about 30 detainees, rather than 60, have refused to eat since Monday.…
-
·
Language sets high hurdle for caregiver candidates
FOREIGN NURSES Since the first batch of Indonesian nurses and caregivers arrived in 2008 under a new bilateral economic partnership agreement, 570 have come to Japan, as have 310 Filipinos under another EPA that took effect two years ago. But just two Indonesians and one Filipino — out of 254 applicants — passed Japan’s nursing…
-
·
Fresh batch of Filipino nurses, caregivers to leave for Japan
A fresh batch of over 100 candidate nurses and caregivers will leave the Philippines for Japan this weekend to begin free language and skills training, officials said Saturday. A total of 46 nurses and 70 caregivers, the third group of Filipino health workers to be sent to Japan, will depart Sunday to undergo a six-month…
-
·
Chiba city’s native speaker English classes canceled after ALT contracts found illegal
This is just more reason to unionize. Stop illegal dispatching and claim higher wages and better benefits. Don’t be taken advantage of by these middlemen and these Boards of Education that want to hire you without paying you what they should and without affording you what is rightfully yours under Japanese law. This “cooling off…
-
·
The role of labor unions
Japanese workers mark this year’s May Day amid continued hard economic times and a harsh employment situation. This is an opportune time for serious discussion on the role labor unions can play to create a society where people can toil with hope for the future. Japan’s unemployment rate in February remained stuck at relatively high…