A shake-up of Japanese-language schools is in the cards as the government tries to lure more foreign students but faces up to the fact that many facilities are poorly run or even corrupt.
According to education ministry officials, most of the problems stem from the fact that oversight of language schools has been handed over to the Justice Ministry, whose primary concern is not learning but immigration administration. Although the education ministry still has some say, oversight of school quality ends up falling between the cracks.
"Increasing the quality of Japanese-language schools is practically a national policy but bureaucracy is getting in the way," an education ministry official said. "It's going to be difficult to improve the situation unless some serious wrongdoing surfaces."