Job Discussion Forums

[steki47]

[marley'sghost]

[steki47]

[nightsintodreams]

I've worked as a direct hire and a dispath ALT, my experience of the two has been quite different. Direct hire ALTs generally get a little more respect and are treated more like adults, they're also better paid and receive most benefits such as shakai hokken. When working for a dispatch company, often your lessons are already planned and materials have already been made for you so all you really have to do is walk straight into the lessons.

[fluffyhamster]

[Maitoshi]

Likely spot on, Flufster.

[G Cthulhu]

I think that some of you have the wrong idea about JET. Phrasing things as "other dispatch programmes" and the like suggests a fundamental misunderstanding IMO. As others have said, JET is about "internationalisation". Dispatch companies are about making a profit.

Similarly, several comments were made about "requiring JETS to speak Jpns" which is, again, apparently ignorant of the reality that the majority of applicants at interview these days speak at least conversational Japanese. To give you an example, at the interviews in Chicago and Seattle a few weeks ago there were only two interviewees (on the 3 days I was there (out of 5 interview days)) who did not speak at least some very basic Japanese. Of the people I interviewed, over 50% were conversationally fluent. Contrast that with 15 years ago when arriving in Japan on JET and speaking/reading was unusual.

As a whole, I think that JET is moving towards a more professional focus, and remains much more professional than the dispatch market is. Salaries have gone down. Benefits are, generally, down. The costs, overall, are way down as a lot of the expense (which isn't on the JET themselves, but on the back end support systems) has been gutted over the last ~5 years. To give you a trivial example, embassy and consulate advertising material is often photocopied these days instead of being professionally printed. I haven't seen numbers for a few years now, but last time I did the support costs were 3 x the cost of JET salaries overall and they had been cut by over 50% 2010-2012.

Value of the programme overall? No one in the thread has defined their metrics for "value" or "success" of the programme. A lot fo the stated goals by the Jpn government are soft goals, so measuring them will be difficult.

So, overall, I don't think that JET is a failure in that it has made strong progress towards the goals the Japanese government has given it. That's not a statement about those goals as worthy goals, but I don't think you can fault it too much on the goals they have, and especially not if you consider the amounts spent by the government on make-work building schemes around the country that are far more along the lines of industry welfare and deliver almost no benefit to the country.

All that said, I do, however, agree that the goals should be changed.

JET has served its original purpose. It needs to move faster than it is in changing to a professional teaching programme. Personally, I would cut the numbers by half across the country. This would impact the dispatch programmes because the government still subsidizes the cost of a dispatch salary to the BOE's, just as they do JET. I see the dispatch companies as far more draining on the economy than JET is: their performance is dismal and they are no better than the construction companies sucking at the teat of the government.

I'd like to see numbers cut, starting with dispatch companies. Use some of that money to send teachers outside Japan to work as ALT's in other countries for 12 months - NZ, Australia, Canada, UK. Do it as part of the second or third year requirement after they pass registration, ie. Study, qualify, trial year, register, teach one year, sent outside Japan for 12 months, back to Japan and bonded to teaching for another 3-5 years. Support them heavily while outside Japan. ALT's should function on two levels IMO: at the elementary level it's purely about general education and opening horizons, for the students and the ALT. This would be the typical JET cliche position. At the JHS and SHS level focus ALT's into the schools that have an actual desire to have an ALT. Demand teaching quals (about 25% of current applicants have teaching qualifications, btw) and let them get on with it.

As a side note, there's nothing stopping BOE's hiring non-Japanese as teachers. They can be hired on 1 year contracts as direct hires just as Japanese nationals are in their first year. There's nothing legally stopping a non-Japanese from applying for registration and becoming a tenured teacher. They do exist, but they're very rare - I know of 2 in Fukushima and 1 in Gunma. They all have teaching qualifications (undergrad BEd's) and took a few extra classes to qualify for local registration. The problem, of course, if the cultural and institutional reluctance to accept the foreigner as the same, even if they are qualified and registered just as the Jpns teachers are. Personally, I think that will change very slowly, but that's no different from many countries - try registering as a teacher in most states in the US with a NZ teaching qualification! It's far (far!) more difficult than doing the same in Japan, IMO.


This post brought to you by rambling thoughts and two glasses of wine.

[kpjf]

[rxk22]