When we look back over Japan's foreign student policy and the reality of foreign student inflows to Japan from the end of W. W. II to the present, the following two questions come to light. (1) Why, in the 1980s, did the rate of increase in the number of foreign students become dramatically higher? (2) Why is it that in Japan, where a clearly demarcated national boundary supposedly makes it difficult for foreigners to stay as long-term residents, a consensus appears to be forming on the intake of a large number of foreign students?
Academic analyses and government policy hold that foreign students are “special foreigners” attending only tertiary level educational institutions and who will return to their home countries as soon as their studies have been completed. However, the hard facts concerning the recent situation of foreign students in Japan confirm that Japan is no longer an exception to the world-wide trend in which the flow of foreign students is one form of international migration and there is a strong possibility of their becoming immigrants in the country where they study. This paper considers, then, the gaps between the reality and the government perceptions of foreign-student issues in Japan. It deals specifically with question (1), examining such factors as 1) the 1982 revisions to Japanese Immigration Control Order, 2) recent changes in the overseas studies policy of countries from which students come, 3) the special characteristics of Taiwanese students.
I argue that the major reason for the dramatic increase in the number of foreign students in Japan actually lies outside the scope of the Ministry of Education's foreign-student policy. Rather, two changes, independent of the Japanese government's foreign-student policy, occurred simultaneously, creating and intensifying the increase in the numbers of self-financed students. Firstly, changes to Japan's immigration policy eased the way for foreign students' entry into and residence in Japan by simplifing entry visa issuing procedures for Japanese language school students, liberalizing changes of visa status and foreign student's eligibility for part-time work etc. Secondly, changes in the emigration policies of Japan's Asian neighbours facilitated the departure of greater numbers of self-financed students, eg. Korea's abolition of the qualifing examination for overseas study, Taiwan's liberalization of overseas travel etc.
Future foreign student issues in Japan will concentrate on 1) part-time work by self-financed students, 2) the increase in the number of foreign students in quasitertiary institutions, 3) alternatives available to foreign students remaining in Japan after completing their studies (employment, Japanese spouse etc.). Because these issues are concerned with how non-Japanese nationals should be received into Japanese society, they are necessarily influenced by the Ministry of justice's policy decisions.
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