THE Japanese government plans to expand the range of foreign students who can receive scholarships starting next April to provide more academic opportunities for the increasing number of children of foreign workers.
Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology estimates that around 500 to 1,000 new students will be eligible to receive scholarships, either in the form of grants or loans.
As reported by Between on Sunday (17/3), the Japanese Ministry of Education will include prospective scholarship recipients who live in the country with their parents on dependent visas.
The conditions are that prospective scholarship recipients have completed education up to elementary, middle and high school levels in Japan and intend to work and live in Japan following graduating from university.
So far, scholarships provided by the Japan Student Services Organization are only available to Japanese citizens and foreign nationals with visas as special permanent residents, permanent residents, or long-term residents who intend to live in Japan permanently.
Previously, lawmakers from Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party called on the government to expand academic support for foreign children in an effort to attract foreign workers as Japan experiences a population decline.
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Civil society groups, including the non-governmental organization Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan, have also called for expanding the scope of scholarships considering that children of foreign workers are more likely to face financial difficulties.
The Japanese Ministry of Manpower recorded that the number of foreign workers in Japan at the end of October 2023 reached 2 million, to be precise 2,048,675 people. That number increased by 12.4 percent from the previous year.
In line with the increase in the number of foreign workers, the Japanese Immigration Services Agency recorded that there were 244,890 foreigners entering Japan with dependent visas at the end of June 2023, up 7.5 percent from the previous year. (Z-6)
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