In recent years, Japan has faced increasingly tough competition especially from South Korea, China, India and other emerging countries. The mounting concern over the lack of Japanese human resources with proficient language and other communication skills has given rise to debate on the need for "global human resources development."
The debate has been encumbered by three problems:
(1) "Global human resources development" has tended to be equated with "language education." While curriculum changes in English-language teaching have been introduced at junior and senior high school levels and English will become compulsory at primary schools, little appreciable progress has been achieved to date.