Job Discussion Forums

[Leon30]

Hi. I heard that the JET programme is being scrapped. If so, does anyone know when, and also - how will the jobs in the public schools thayt were previously fille dby JET be filled in future....?

Cheers for any info.

[maya.the.bee]

the JET website says nothing about being scrapped. and they're taking applications for next year, so i wouldn't worry about it.

[kdynamic]

It's just a rumor, the same rumor that seems to come around every year.

[ironopolis]

I would expect it's not true, but at the same time, it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out to be at least partially true sometime in the future.

Entry level job salaries in Japan have been falling across the board and I'm sure the bodies footing the JET salary bill must have realised they're now paying more than they need to.

I've also heard of a few boards of education up and down the country who've either actually withdrawn or were considering withdrawing from the JET scheme. Perhaps saving money was one reason, the teachers employed instead would be very unlikely to be on the same salary as a JET participant. Another reason I heard mentioned is that some boards of education were very unhappy with the quality of people they were getting.

Still, if the OP is thinking of applying next year, I'd say the advice above to not worry about it is probably good. It may change over the next few years, but someone coming next year for a year or 2 is perhaps not going to be affected.

[furiousmilksheikali]

[Chris21]

That rumor has been around for a long time, but the JET Programme is larger than it's ever been. Just a few years ago there were about 3000 new JETs per year (6000 total), and it's up to over 5000 newbies now (not sure what the combined total is). I've also heard that there is a waiting list for contracting organizations trying to land a JET.

Compared to what unionized teachers make at public schools, having a JET on staff isn't a big expense at all for most school boards.

[kdynamic]

Furthermore they just changed the rules to JETs can recontract up to 5 years when it used to be limited to 3. Seems like they want them to stay, not go.

[TK4Lakers]

I don't know if there's any truth to this, but I can assume a little that JET is being downsized.

Lately, I've heard that dispatch companies are taking over in many of the cities and spreading into districts. In my own city, this is the final year JET is being contracted.

The reason why is that JET's are the BOE's full responsibility. They have to take care of them, watch after them, and be there for them. As you can imagine, the costs and time add up.

With dispatch companies, BOE's have little or no contact with the ALT at all, but rather through the company. In regards to the ALT, the BOE has little to no responsibility as well as the schools.

[kdynamic]

On the other hand, ALTs are now going into elementary schools, etc etc. Look, there are too many variables to think of it in such simple terms. The numbers of JET participants aren't falling.

[ironopolis]

[natsume]

I don't have the answer to this, but I wonder if, although many BOEs and prefectures are switching to dispatch companies, the overall total number of ALTs in the country is actually higher then ever? Anybody know?

Pre-Jet, in it's 20th year this year, were there even that many ALTs in Japan?

[G Cthulhu]

[luckbox]

[ironopolis]

Yes, fair post, luckbox, I'd agree with most of that. I think it's certainly true in the present ALT situation that when saving money and cutting corners comes up against improving quality, there's only going to be one winner.

Having said that though, quite a few BoEs probably rated the quality of their JET participants rather lower than some of those JET participants did themselves, and they may feel that for less money and less hassle, they've ended up with an ALT product of at least similar quality.

I take the point about JETs seeing out their contracts in your area, and I'm sure that was the case in many places elsewhere too. However, from what I'd heard of unhappy BoEs, this was sometimes what they were actually bothered about. Whilst of course someone doing a runner after 5 months was a problem (and with an agency they can now be much more easily replaced), I'd heard they were more concerned about being stuck with people they really didn't like, who treated it like a holiday and were never going to leave early precisely because of the decent salary they were on.

Indeed, there's not much point paying a higher salary to get better quality if you don't match that higher salary with specific higher requirements. If they wanted better quality, I reckon they'd need to have a salary structure similar to other vaguely equivalent schemes in other countries, where they reward teaching qualifications or experience. But, as I said at the beginning, that's a big 'if', and is perhaps frequently not the case at all. Us foreigners tend to be largely the same, so let's just get them cheaper, eh!?

[kdynamic]