20,000 foreign students in public schools need Japanese lessons

The number of foreign students who go to public elementary, junior high and high schools in Japan and need to be taught Japanese rose to 20,692 as of last September, up 5.2 percent from a year earlier and topping 20,000 for the first time, the education ministry said Wednesday.

The figure reflects the increase in the number of people registered in Japan as foreign residents, officials of the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry said, adding that the ministry will make efforts to improve the situation for such children.

The breakdown of the number is 14,281 students at elementary schools, 5,076 students at junior high schools, 1,242 students at senior high schools, 70 students at schools for the blind, deaf, or disabled and 23 students at secondary education schools.

Among the 5,281 schools attended by the foreign students, 47.1 percent have only one person to teach them Japanese. The number of schools with 30 or more such students grew from 56 to 77 last year.

Aichi Prefecture had 3,620 foreign students who need to take Japanese lessons, the largest number among Japan's 47 prefectures. It was followed by 2,219 students in Kanagawa Prefecture and 2,044 in Shizuoka Prefecture.

Meanwhile, the number of Japanese pupils who need to take lessons in the Japanese language for such reasons as they have lived abroad or have a foreign parent also hit a record high of 3,214.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060426/kyodo/d8h7m67o0.html