Tokyo's Haneda Airport is seen at night in this file image taken from a Mainichi Shimbun helicopter on Sept. 23, 2021. (Mainichi/Kimi Takeuchi)
TOKYO -- Japan has announced it will reopen its borders to foreign students from Nov. 8, provided those entering can meet certain government-set conditions including completing 14 days in quarantine. The move comes after a general election, delayed Olympic and Paralympic Games, and a stop-start approach to its border policy that saw the country close, briefly open, and then swiftly shut-up shop again.
Japan is the last G-7 country to reopen to students entering from abroad who are privately funding their education. With the exception of a sudden, brief four-month window from October 2020 to January 2021, the borders have been closed since the coronavirus pandemic began in earnest in spring 2020, with no hint of when they could reopen until now. At the same time, students with Japanese government scholarships (MEXT scholarships), among others, have been able to enter.
Some figures in Japan's academic community have lamented the way the country has treated privately funded foreign students keen to create connections with the country. Professor Hiroshi Ota of Hitotsubashi University's Center for General Education, who himself studied abroad in the U.S. for his masters and Ph.D., expressed exasperation at the government's handling of the situation over the past one-and-a-half years: "International students are treated like they're just tourists. ... We really have to change things. ... Now diversity, inclusion -- we discuss it, but it's just a buzzword. It's only a word. It's not very action-oriented."
In mid-October, Paul Hastings, executive director of the Japan ICU Foundation, presented an appeal for the borders to open to the Japanese government, signed by over 600 academics, professionals, students and others. It stated that Japan's travel restrictions have "eroded the global relationships and reputations of Japan's educational institutions," and pointed to the fact that institutions in Japan that operate exchange program agreements with foreign counterparts had been able to send their own researchers and students, but not receive them.
Ota said the one-way treatment of exchange student agreements had been damaging: "This, I think, will affect the credibility of Japanese universities or even Japan as a whole. ... I feel it's a selfish approach. We can send our students -- 'please host our students, but we won't accept your students.'"
Barring privately funded students represents a huge block on overall foreign student numbers, who made up about 96% -- 299,453 -- of foreign nationals studying in Japan in May 2019, according to data from the Japan Association of Private Universities and Colleges. Conversely, MEXT scholarship holders, who can enter, accounted for just 3%, or 9,220 students. The remaining 1%, 3,541 students, were government-dispatched foreign students whose entry is based on agreements with specific countries.
In the meantime, student visas have fallen drastically. Ministry of Justice data shows that in 2019, Japan issued around 120,000 new student visas, but the figure fell to 50,000 in 2020, and to just 7,000 by June 2021. At the end of 2019 Japan had 345,791 foreign student visa holders overall, but by the end of June 2021, this was down to 227,844 people -- a drop of around 34% in just 18 months.
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (Ritsumeikan APU), a private university in the southwest Japan city of Beppu, Oita Prefecture, offers 90% of its classes in English and Japanese to foreign students it recruits from its offices across the world. As of May 1, around 2,651 of its 5,744 students were international ones. Now, some 1,000 of its academic 2021 students are engaged in online classes while waiting to enter Japan, and the school is poised to help bring them in.
The international arrivals lobby at Narita Airport in the city of Narita, Chiba Prefecture, is seen largely devoid of people in this file image taken on Oct. 23, 2021. (Mainichi/Tadakazu Nakamura)
"As soon as border control is opened, they will come to Japan, definitely," Prof. Kaoru Natsuda at Ritsumeikan APU's College of International Management said. He added that between November 2020 and January this year when the border was opened, the university brought in around 225 students. It paid for their accommodation and transport from the airport to hotel quarantine, among other expenses.
The ranks of student visa holders include a significant number of Japanese language students, many of whom go on to further education in Japan after two years of study. Data from the Association for the Promotion of Japanese Language Education (Nisshinkyo), a private government-approved body to oversee standards in Japanese language schools, showed that almost 22,000 went on to further education of some kind.
Border controls have left enrollment at language schools dwindling. A Nisshinkyo survey on its member schools showed that between fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2020, enrolled student numbers went from 41,600 at 227 institutions nationwide to 24,253 at 224 schools -- an even bigger fall than fiscal 2010 to fiscal 2011, when attending students fell by some 10,000 in the aftermath of the Great East Japan earthquake.
Hiroko Yamamoto is president of Kai Japanese Language School, which she founded in 1987. As of July 2020, the school had 86 students enrolled, many of them from Europe, the U.S. and Taiwan. She also serves as a Tokyo area representative councilor at Nisshinkyo, and is vice president of the "Education Is Not Tourism" campaign that put the spotlight on students stuck waiting outside of Japan during the entry ban.
Speaking before the official government announcement, Yamamoto said that while she welcomes the lifting of border restrictions, she added she was most concerned by whether the response would be a long-term one, or end up like the unstable opening of late 2020 and early 2021: "What I want Japan to do ... is that the government offers not just entry to (foreign students) soon, but also stable acceptance regardless of whether infections spread. Because, if midway through the next intake, the coronavirus sixth wave appears around January, then (admissions to Japan) will stop with the spread of infections and we'll be in the same position again. ... It will be sad for the students, and study abroad in Japan will be seen as a risk."
Natsuda agreed: "For us, we'll get as many students in as we can when the border opens because we don't know when it will shut. That's the same worry, the same point of concern."
At a government press conference to announce the measures on Nov. 5, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara stressed the government will continue to move ahead with a phased easing of restrictions, but the country would "respond flexibly to the spread of a new strain (of the coronavirus) or other worsening of the situation."
In written comments to the Mainichi after the announcement, Ota expressed concern at how the reopening will be run, writing: "Logistical challenges will appear after Japan opens its borders to 370,000 foreigners waiting to enter the country, including nearly 150,000 international students."
At present, Certificate of Eligibility (COE) holders with approved entry will be funneled in through three airports: Narita and Haneda airports in east Japan, and Kansai International Airport in west Japan. Total entries from overseas are capped at 3,500 people a day.
Ota called on the government to guarantee all current COE holders' entries and for more airports to be allowed to receive the backlog of people waiting to enter the country. While acknowledging the need for coronavirus measures, he added that the current situation only allows for a gradual stream of students entering. "If we don't hasten this process, we cannot hope to restore the reputation and credibility of studying in Japan," he wrote.
(By Peter Masheter, The Mainichi Staff Writer)
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