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Foreign caregiving trainees to get financial aid to study Japanese

19 Comments

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So the money is going from the prefecture to the facility, and its the facility's responsibility to dole it out to the caregivers who need to study Japanese. Riiiiiiight. I hope there's good oversight or else some facilities will be skimming off the top

13 ( +13 / -0 )

their jobs require greater proficiency in communicating in Japanese than other business fields.

Oh, great to know. Id LOVE to see a nursing trainee try and attempt to do anything in the IT & Marketing fields that my job entails. They must surely need greater proficiency in communicating than any engineers working out there.... Get realistic...

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

In addition, their idea of "greater proficiency" is N3? Laughable. Absolutely pathetic.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

How much technical knowledge does one need to take a patient to the lavatory?

-6 ( +3 / -9 )

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'.

Why do politicians always try to forcefuly help others when nobody has asked them for help? The least the J govt. does with regards to the foreign labor, the better they will be. The best thing they can do is privatize the public institutions, and let the private sector hire whoever they want under the conditions they want.

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

This situation is going to become much more serious in the next few decades as the youth of Japan dwindle to 50% of what they were ten years ago. It’s not unreseasonable to estimate 20-25% of Japanese workers will be from abroad. Perhaps, making people learn Japanese is not the right answer. Perhaps, Japanese should start taking foreign language studies more seriously and actually learn foreign languages.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

If these positions were well paid with good working conditions there would not be a problem getting Japanese people to do them. There are problems in nursing homes on many countries and low wages and poor working conditions are a common denominator. Nursing Homes are money making enterprises and like any business the more they make the better--by any means!

5 ( +5 / -0 )

I failed N4 twice. I paid about ¥400000 of my own money for books, lessons, tests and time off work. After 6 months, I reliazed 80% of students in the language school were not interested in Japanese, just student visa. Half had jobs in host or snack bars. A couple of students were gold diggers. Out of 15 students, only two were serious because they wanted a business in japan and one was a priest.

Importing foriegn workers is not the answer. We don’t need so many workers, just change the system. For example, my partner lost their drivers license. One day off work. Far away office. ¥800 for new photo. 5 forms. Staff to deal with it =7.

Just show a passport or ID card, click on the computer page, press print, laminate and done in 15 minutes by one person.

Aging population is not the problem.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

The ol' "throw money at the problem".

The JLPT itself is run by amakudari, seemingly with the idea of doing the minimum amount of work. Care givers need communication skills. Ones in the provinces will need to know hougen, local dialects, because old people speak the strongest ones. Learning kanji and complicated grammar will not help them there.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

Well, going to be interesting to see how this turns out. This is a potential recipe for some serious abuse here.

Trainees who already have limited language abilities could be the target of unscrupulous folks looking to make some cash.

7 ( +7 / -0 )

I failed N4 twice. 

This must be a typo, surely?

1 ( +2 / -1 )

I bet it gets deducted from their pay along with everything else.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

but..... not enough time to actually attend school, learn Japanese and then get kicked out after 3 years because they can't pass the nursing test that is all in Japanese. Rinse and repeat. #slavelabor

8 ( +8 / -0 )

It's a trap.

9 ( +9 / -0 )

How much technical knowledge does one need to take a patient to the lavatory?

You have no idea what nursing or caring is. Your ignorance on the importance of communication between patent and carer and relatives, and denigration of the work says a lot about you.

9 ( +10 / -1 )

It won't any difference. No matter how much money you give them. They will still failed the test. Japanese is too hard for foreigners to learn. "I failed N4 twice."

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

I have to care for my partners mother. Sometimes she eats tissues, falls down, shouts angrily, sometimes she tells stories about the American firebombing of tokyo when she was a child. How she had to move to the countryside to escape. I bet half the posters don’t know pre-war japan. maybe 70% live in japan for a long time. Have family connections. But short time cash scrapped desparete workers, how can they understand?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I admire those who work in the care profession and couldn't care less what their nationality is. It takes commitment, compassion and a huge amount of inner strength to look after the elderly and those who are no longer able to care for themselves.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

I recall reading survey results stating that elderly Japanese would prefer a Japanese speaking robot caregiver to that of a real-life Japanese speaking foreigner.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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