Japan asks India to introduce Japanese as second foreign language in schools, universities

NEW DELHI/PUNE: In its efforts to attract more Indian students and skilled talent to Japan, its government has urged the Indian government to induct Japanese as the second foreign language in its schools and universities on the line of the USA where it has been introduced as a second language in some of the high schools.

At present, the number of Indian students studying in Japan and also the blue and white-collar walkers constitute a very minuscule number as compared to other countries such as China, South Korea, Taiwan, the USA, the UK, and others. Even Nepal, a small country in India’s neighborhood boasts of a bigger presence of its students and workforce in Japan when compared to India with a mammoth 1.4 billion population.

In India though, the Japanese language already claims a slot in the list of the foreign languages at the secondary level in school along with Korean, Thai, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian, but it is still not the mandatory second language.

The related concern was recently raised by Dr. Fukahori Yasukata, Consul-General of Japan in Mumbai, who said, “In order to make more and more Indian students and talent to come to Japan, it is important that more and more Indian youths learn Japanese language, and for this, the Japanese government has asked the Indian government as well as individually some of the state governments including Maharashtra to make Japanese language as a second foreign language in high schools, and universities.”

“We have succeeded to introduce the Japanese language as a second foreign language in some of the high schools in the USA. And if this happens in India also, the number of Japanese students studying in Japan will go up,” he added.

Dr. Fukahori Yasukata said this during his inaugural address made on the occasion of the launch of the year-long activities by the Indo-Japan Business Council (IJBC), which is celebrating the year current year 2022 as the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between India and Japan.

At present, the number of students going to Japan from countries is much more than India even though Japan fighting its aging and shrinking population issues require manpower from friendly countries like India. Japan is looking forward to India is because of the fact that the Japanese employers are not comfortable with the Chinese employees who are about 3 million in number in Japan. in deep contrast, the number of Indians in Japan is about 34,000 only.

“Nowadays we have problems with Chinese people in Japan. There are about 3 million Chinese personnel present in Japan, and they came to Japan in the last 20 years. But since China is a communist country and has directed its nationals staying, studying, and working in other countries to abide by its orders. So the Japanese businesses in Japan who have employed Chinese personnel are very conscious about the Chinese nationals working in Japan, but we don’t have any such difficulties with Indian workers because India is a democratic country,” said the Consul-General of Japan, Mumbai.

“Also the challenge is that the students coming to Japan from China, Korea and other Asian countries including ASEAN are not necessarily studying the Japanese language, and they come to Japan as they have their families or businesses in Japan. Therefore, we need to expand our human exchanges with India as we face issues like the aging population and shrinking working force. We need people in 15 sectors such as agriculture, production, etc. We enjoy core values in common and can work in many fields with India,” said Dr. Fukahori.

ACN