Most international schools in Japan are known for catering to wealthy Western expats, Japanese returnees, and children from multiracial or multicultural families.
In recent years, though, more international schools have opened to serve non-Japanese Asian communities, drawing more and more students as the populations of such communities rise across the country.
With lower tuition than legacy international schools, these schools are becoming an affordable option for expats of varied nationalities who might stay in Japan for the longer term and Japanese parents looking for accessible international education.
Global Indian International School (GIIS) Tokyo and Everest International School Japan (EISJ) are just two examples.
Over the past two decades, the number of students at GIIS has soared — from 60 in 2006 to 1,300 this year — alongside the growth of the Indian community in Japan. As of the end of June, there were 46,262 Indian residents in Japan, double the figure from a decade ago.
Initially established to appeal to Indian families in Japan wishing to have their children learn from Indian teachers, many of GIIS Tokyo’s parents worked in the information technology and finance sectors. For its first decade in operation, the school only used the Indian national curriculum, according to Sumit Mishra, Japan director of GIIS.
The school has four campuses in Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward and a newly opened one in Osaka.
EISJ, a Nepalese school with three buildings in Suginami and Shinjuku wards, meanwhile, has also seen a surge in student numbers — from 13 when it was founded in 2003 to 430 now — as the Nepalese population increased fivefold from 31,537 in 2013 to 156,333 as of June.
EISJ is a registered Cambridge International School alongside GIIS. GIIS also has International Baccalaureate accreditation depending on the grade level.
Both schools are approved by the education ministry as designated international schools equivalent to Japanese high schools, meaning students who graduate from these schools can take entrance exams for Japanese universities.
This is just one of the reasons the schools are also attracting Japanese parents looking for affordable and accessible international education for their children. And for school operators, Japanese students have become important sources of tuition revenue, something that was particularly clear during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When COVID struck and borders were closed for almost two years, our dependence on Indian students coming from India stopped, so we changed our own strategy,” said Mishra. “We saw that we were already relevant to the Japanese population and thought, how can we expand on this market and become more international?”
Today, in a post-pandemic normal, nearly 60% of the student population at GIIS is Japanese, whereas the Indian student population is roughly 30%, according to Mishra. Until the pandemic, students and teachers at GIIS Tokyo were predominantly Indian, with Japanese students being a small minority.
While EISJ is much smaller than GIIS, and the Japanese student population is much smaller still, Principal Bishnu Bhatt has certainly seen a rise in interest from Japanese families.
“I talked to Japanese families and asked them, ‘Why are you sending your kids to this school?’” Bhatt said. “They said that it’s because of the English-speaking environment, and because of the mixed community, and because our fee structure is very low.”
Tuition at ESIJ can cost anywhere from ¥500,000 to around ¥1 million a year, depending on the grade level and chosen curriculum, while tuition at GIIS normally costs about ¥1.5 million a year. In comparison, legacy international schools — like the American School in Japan and the Yokohama International School — can cost upward of ¥3 million in tuition annually.
In October, hundreds of parents — most of them Japanese — attended the International Education Expo Tokyo, which brought schools, parents and industry thinkers together not only to connect with educational institutions but also to learn more about the culture and practices surrounding English and international education.
GIIS participated in the event alongside Japanese universities and high schools that are newly introducing international and complete English education tracks, newly established British boarding schools, and dual diploma-granting and tutoring programs for children returning from living abroad.
Manabu Murata, host of the event and the founder of the International School Times blog, said the growing interest comes down to cost and access.
“The threshold is high (for Japanese families) at long-established schools like the American School (in Japan),” Murata said.
Asian schools, meanwhile, “are culturally similar to Japanese schools, are strong in mathematics and science, have lower tuition fees, and teach students to communicate in English, so many Japanese households might feel like it’s accessible to them,” he said.
Legacy international schools tend to require that students and parents be able to communicate in English and that they have at least one foreign passport holder, or to be a Japanese returnee, to help maintain English proficiency and rigor across their school communities.
However, GIIS and EISJ are more inclusive to Japanese students and students from families where English might not be their first language.
“We do not wish to be an elite institution open only to the privileged,” Mishra said.
If children come with a lower level of English proficiency, and even if parents speak minimal English, GIIS will work to accommodate the family and provide extra resources to students, Mishra added.
The school also has varied academic tracks — including the Indian national curriculum and internationally accredited curricula like Cambridge Assessment International Education and the International Baccalaureate program — giving parents of every nationality options for their child’s future.
In the case of ESIJ, the school doesn't take on non-English speakers or those with lower English proficiency unless such students are in the youngest grade levels.
Still, both Mishra and Bhatt see the influx of interest from Japanese families and potentially those of other nationalities as an opportunity, both for the sustainability of their schools and for increased diversity.
“International education is not just about (IB) board; it is also about sitting in a class with children from different nationalities,” Mishra added.
“And so I would say, while there is competition (in Japan), we have made a space for ourselves, and we look forward to further improving the quality of our delivery to become more relevant to international and Japanese families.”
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