In Japan, there is an aversion to vocational education due to a unique view of “Kyou-Iku”. The author think that this is due to misunderstanding due to ignorance and prejudice. These comprise prejudice against the “apprenticeship system”, a misunderstanding of “education” and “training,” and an ideological interpretation of practical training. To resolve these misunderstandings, this paper presents the significance of “developing education as a calling” in supporting human development. Then, as a future task, we will pursue a completely different method of collaboration from the past.

The purpose of this study was to assess comprehension of polysemous verbs（verbs with multiple meanings）in aphasic subjects. The subjects were 22 aphasic patients with low- and mid-level comprehension. The meanings of polysemous verbs used in the assessment were assigned one of three values: high familiarity（L1）, moderate familiarity（L2）, or low familiarity（L3）. Comparing correct response rates of the three levels of polyseme familiarity, comprehension was significantly higher for meanings that were highly familiar, followed by moderate familiarity, with low familiarity meanings having the lowest comprehension rate. These results suggest that, for aphasic subjects with low-/mid-level comprehension, the level of familiarity between meanings of polysemous verbs has an effect on comprehension.

The global spread of COVID-19 infections has had a big impact on the lives of international students studying at training institutions for certified care workers in Japan. Most of those students have worked as part-time workers at elderly-care facilities where a number of COVID-19 cluster infections occurred amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, they have had to face various problems such as increased job stresses, learning-related difficulties due to online lessons, and serious concerns over the health conditions of their family members remaining in their countries of origin. In order to identify their various problems related to daily life and mental health during the pandemic, the authors conducted a questionnaire survey of overseas students of Japan Welfare Education College, where one of the authors works as a lecturer. The results clearly showed that 92.7% of respondents said their part-time job required them to seriously focus their attention, and 85.2% said it had affected their daily lives. The survey also revealed that 59.8% of respondents suffered from sleeplessness and mental stress, and experienced a lack of confidence in their own health.

When considering the “right to learn” in contemporary Japanese vocational education, we will discuss the “Declaration on the Right to Learn” from the UNESCO Conference on Adult Education as an important reference document.We discuss the first six items of the Declaration on the Right to Learn, in order to understand the Declaration and how to put its contents into practice through learning support. After these six items in the Declaration on the Right to Learn, there are important passages that touch on the meaning and reasons for these six items; this topic will be discussed in the next article.