As the COVID-19 pandemic settles down, more Japanese people are going abroad to study.
Some 64,000 people went overseas to study last year, doubling from a year before and recovering to roughly 80% of prepandemic levels.
Asian countries are eager to attract such people, as popular destinations for studying abroad shift away from Western countries amid rising prices and the weak yen.
In August, the Philippines’ Department of Tourism organized a tour to allow high school teachers in Japan to visit the country.
“Everyone, please imagine yourselves being students studying abroad,” said a teacher from Howdy English Academy, an English-language school attached to a hotel in the Philippines’ Cebu island.
One-on-one mock lessons were held, with around 10 teachers from high schools in Fukuoka, Yamaguchi and Hiroshima prefectures invited by the Philippines' Department of Tourism serving as students.
The lessons were taught by Filipino teachers who graduated from a university in the Philippines majoring in education and obtained a professional teaching certificate.
The school offers courses of up to eight weeks with classes five days a week, and the shortest course — one-week — is priced at hundreds of thousands of yen.
“The price is about half the amount required for studying in the United States, whose programs are mainly group lessons,” a staff member from Howdy English Academy said. “Even with the shortest course, you can spend days immersed in an English-only environment, something you can’t experience in Japan.”
The tour was organized to offer teachers involved in planning school trips and study-abroad programs first-hand experience.
People studying at Howdy stay at a hotel close to where the school is located. They can enjoy shopping and go swimming in the sea on weekends. The school accepts not only high school students but also working adults, parents and children.
The tour’s participants also visited another English-language school and a hospital and received explanations on living costs and medical services available in the area.
Some participants asked questions on security issues and commuting methods.
“It was good that we could see for ourselves” emergency response and medical services, said one of the participants who in the past accompanied students studying abroad and had trouble taking care of a student who fell sick.
According to a survey conducted on 40 study-abroad agencies who are members of the Japan Association of Overseas Studies (JAOS) in Tokyo, the number of students going to North America or Oceania to study in 2023 was less than 80% of the figure in 2019.
On the other hand, those who went to study in countries in Asia such as the Philippines and Malaysia in 2023 rose 10% from 2019. By region, Asia was the only area to receive more Japanese students than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
By country, the U.S. was the most popular destination in 2023, with some 14,000, or 22.4% of the total, choosing the country, followed by Australia with 19%, Canada with 14.7%, the United Kingdom with 10.7% and the Philippines with 9%.
Malaysia was chosen by 893 people, occupying only 1.4% of the total, but the figure was nearly double the number posted in 2019.
More than 70% chose a program of less than three months.
JAOS believes there is a growing trend of study-abroad destinations shifting to Asia, which offers programs at lower prices than other areas such as North America, as the costs of studying abroad is pushed up by the weak yen and rising prices.
“Studying in Asia is attractive because it is close to Japan and living costs including food expenses are lower,” said an official from a study-abroad agency in the Kyushu region. “I think Asia will become an even closer study-abroad destination in the future.”
The official said the number of people wishing to go to North America is declining and the agency is receiving more inquiries for programs in Asia as the first choice.
The participants of the tour in the Philippines were also taken to another location — Caohagan Island, located about an hour away from Cebu by boat.
The island is known as an impoverished area, with the average monthly income of households said to be around ¥9,000.
The tour participants inspected the island, led by a staff member from go share, a nonprofit organization that has offices in Japan and the Philippines and offers support to the island’s residents.
They visited an elementary school holding classes outside because of the lack of a school building and looked at houses damaged by a typhoon.
The residents of the island have to go to other islands to purchase drinking water. They store rainwater for daily use.
“We brought you to this island to offer added value to studying abroad,” said Koji Takehara, an official from the Philippines Department of Tourism’s Osaka office who organized the tour. Takehara has experience of working in the Philippines.
The tour demonstrates that students can not only learn English but can also gain experiences that may widen their worldview.
Some high schools choose to include a trip to Caohagan in their school trips or study-abroad programs.
One of the teachers who participated in the tour said, “I thought 'I want to study here myself' and I could really feel this place can make me reinvent myself.
“I’m sure my students will feel the same way.”
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