I haven’t seen this discussed on this subreddit much, but maybe it is. The declining birthrate is impacting education across the board in Japan. This is a story about a rural junior high school in Japan that closed this March after it’s final class of TWO students graduated:
Now that piece talks about the impact in rural Japan, but I can assure you that it’s happening in urban areas as well, and it will only continue to accelerate. I live in Osaka, and within 10 minutes’ walk of where I live two high schools have closed down in the past 8 years-and one of them had only been opened since the 1980s. I went on a tour with some of my faculty members once of regional kindergartens; facilities that had been built to house ten classes were down to a single class of 20 kids or so-and that was in 2014. I can promise you it’s only getting worse.
Even universities are not safe; those who have been here long enough and have been paying attention will already know this, but smaller 2-4 faculty universities started closing back in the 2000s; that number will only increase. The university I teach at had approximately 5000 students in the 1990s; today the number stands at just over 500. In the past two years we’ve closed the junior college, the dormitory and lost about half the teaching staff. I do not think it will last another five years, and I am already planning for my life after education in Japan once my job ends. Because it’s going to.
For those of you thinking about coming to Japan, do not plan on coming here long-term if education is your only option. ALTs are increasingly being sourced from other Asian countries; one of my students who graduated last year and who’s teaching in Shiga told me that all the ALTs at her school are from India, and that many of the schools in her area also employ a lot of Indian ALTs. The answer why is obvious; as the education system contracts, the competition for BoE contracts by dispatch companies will increase, and their response is to find people who are willing to work for ever-lower salaries in order to keep their profits as high as possible while being competitive for as long as possible. Eikaiwas won’t fare much better-fewer people will mean fewer people interested in taking recreational English “lessons”.
For those of you who think you’re safe because you’re a direct hire/have a special teaching license and are employed in the private education system you’re no more safe than anyone else. Just three weeks ago I was talking to a liaison officer at a private high school in Chiba; 15 years ago they had a thousand students; today it’s 450. That story is by no way unique. The fate of the private school system will be the same as that of the public one: amalgamation and/or closure.
The situation is grim, it’s only going to get worse and whether you’re married in over here with a family or not you’d better start thinking of a contingency about what you’re going to do when-and not if-you lose your source of income.
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Yes, schools are shutting down. When I was an ALT almost 4 years ago, one of my elementary schools was shut down and the few remaining students were bused to another one instead. It’s probably happening in less populated areas in cities as well as schools merge. However, I do not believe that larger city schools and private schools/juku are going to suffer. They mas suffer from a post-covid shift in spending habits (eikaiwa is a rich person’s hobby), but not because of population issues.
If it gets to that point, there’s going to be a lot bigger problems than not being able to find a job. An entire country will disappear.
In other words, it’s not going to happen. The government has been nudging people to reproduce more, but as it gets more dire they will start to take stronger action.
My first job in Japan was in 2006 in a 3rd tier city of 400,000 people about 20 minutes from Nagoya. My school had 300 students every year while I was working there. I visited the school last year, it only had 150 students. I think my old boss tried to get enrollment up by becoming an IB school. Unfortunately, the students aren’t coming anymore.
This has been happening for years and most people who have been here long enough have seen the writing on the walls. It gets discussed in this sub sometimes.
You’re right, nobody’s job is safe. Even universities are merging and/or closing. But it’s not actually that grim YET. The real slaughter is still a ways away, and most people in this sub probably don’t plan on doing what they’re doing now by the time the situation gets actually serious.
Some universities are in trouble. Those at the top have just as many applications as before, if not more. The biggest still have over 50,000 students.
Be flexible about the future. That said, I don’t think I know anyone who expected to be employed for life.
Teachers first, everyone else next.
I mean you have some good points but your last sentence of “when-and not if-you lose your income” is absurd.
So dramatic lol. Less people means less students in school. It’s no secret there is a decline. That’s not some amazing theory you have discovered…
AI worries me more than the population decline.
I think your post is incredibly true for huge areas of Japan, particularly rural or non-enterprising schools. But as it currently stands, if you have been lucky enough to find yourself as a member of the Ritsumeikan Trust, Doshiha Ed, or really any system that tracks to one of the top 20~30 universities then for the foreseeable future these jobs are quite safe, and if anything, going to become even more lucrative.
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For schools to truly set themselves apart they are going to build further international relationships, build tracks into prestigious universities/colleges, aim for governmental programs like SSH, and compete as hard as they can to ground themselves to wealthier and more affluent customers. If the schools are doing this “correctly” that likely means, as I mentioned in a few other posts, that they will, at some point, genuinely switch to hiring people with the practical skills for those jobs: IB and beyond. Likely, many hires at these sorts of high school systems will be people with quite high educational backgrounds who forego university positions and thusly command higher salaries.
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While that is incredibly good news, especially financially, for people who are already networked within that system, it’s REALLY bad news for people who are going to be entering the market 5, 10 or 15 years from now. Getting into those positions in rural areas is going to be very difficult and people who are aiming to live in a major city where they have more chances will obviously have more competition for the positions when they are available.
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If you’re looking at a real career here then I think it is imperative to establish some degree of professional credentials if you want to make decent money and a decent future. If you’re coming here to be an ALT or eikawa, then I would definitely agree with the tone of the OP. It’s going to be rough in a few years… To be frank, if you’re an American and not coming through JET, I’d just say stay home and keep Japan as a hobby..
Well, and unlikely it would happen, Japan could take some advice from other developed countries and have only 23-25 students in a class, rather than 40-45. That would keep the number of classrooms in use similar to now and the number of teachers employed similar. At least for some years. Personally I think it would be a good step because cramming 44 students in a room keeps teachers stressed and classes at a lecture state, not discussion state.
Looking at the statistics from 2005, I can see live births at 1,073,915.
Last year 2022, I can see live births at 799,728.
This is a decrease of 25.5% in 18 years.
Over the next 18 years, 25.5% of the schools are going to close/decline. That is one in four schools.
It speaks for itself that the influx of teachers is also likely to decline as companies are not going to sponsor people to come to Japan to teach English if the jobs are not here.
Many of the schools as you mentioned are in the middle of nowhere and do not even have (assistant) English teachers.
I Would assume that 10% can be mitigated by decreasing the influx of teachers. 5% will be in remote area schools that do not have an assistant teacher.
So you are looking at a decline of 10%. It means teaching English is in decline for sure, however I do not think population decline is the worry here.
Competition from poor countries as the companies are trying to create as much revenue as they can is more worrying. If the influx of potential workers is high (as you can see in Academia for the humanities) and the positions are shrinking you end up with a perfect storm.
Actual teachers in the top 4 cities that make up about half of Japan’s total population will be fine for the foreseeable future.
Teachers have been on the decline as well, so severely so that many places are barely meeting needs despite student decline in rural and outlying cities. It’s not that it’s not a problem, but it’s going to take another 20 years for actual teachers/school staff to feel tangible effects. Depending on how sharp the decline is, the general population drop may just lag the teacher drop proportionally by roughly ten years, causing a somewhat tight but stable equilibrium of teachers/schools to students.
The ALT/Eikaiwa industry has always been on borrowed time and was built on sand, there’s so many cases that would cause those businesses and staff to drop in demand completely not related to population.
I mean, lifetime employment is already finished. I don’t think anyone in my generation is expecting to stay in their job forever. If you’re already in education you should be focusing on upskilling, doing research and getting publications to keep yourself desirable.
I’ve seriously considered closing my school and just working online. My local elementary school has only 14 kids in the first grade. I am def worried about the future and my ability to have enough students to make a living
Yup. By all accounts, being a foreign educator in Japan is akin to being on a sinking ship. That’s why this year, I’ll be switching careers and taking a “lifeboat” back to my home country, uprooting my family with me in the process. In the very late stages of finalizing my wife’s visa and starting moving arrangements soon.
I’m so happy I’m getting out of working in the Japanese education system this summer.
“Save your money man, save your money too. Hit single don’t last very long” (Cypress Hill, Rock Superstar)
Never too soon to figure personal finance out and save for emergencies/the future.
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> The situation is grim, it’s only going to get worse and whether you’re married in over here with a family or not you’d better start thinking of a contingency about what you’re going to do when-and not if-you lose your source of income.
1. Most ALTs are in Japan for a gap year, not to find some sorta long-term career stability.
2. IMO you’re being overly dramatic. Schools will always exist…
I think you raise an interesting point. The decline in population, in particular young people, will impact the education industry. Not sure if it will affect private schools as much though. Parents who send their kids to private school tend to be well off and can afford to have more kids if they choose to. Perhaps it will affect rural schools more as more people move to the bigger cities and those smaller villages and cities die off. But overall yes it is a problem that will definitely start to bite over the coming 20 years or so.
Well some of us here have had kids. So at least we are helping out in our own way. I’ve added two to the population here. So someone is getting paid to be an alt at my kid’s school. That’s my small way in helping out here 😉
Well hopefully the BoE will step in and make some much needed changes to prevent so many schools from closing and try to use this as a positive by reducing the number of students in each class and provide a better education for the students with an improved working environment for the teachers. That’s unlikely I know, but something simple like putting caps on the number of students a school can take at a time would make a huge difference.
Just for another side to education…
If you work in mid or high level accredited international schools, the future seems very stable and positive in Japan. In the last few years, applications and enrolment have been increasing in most of the international schools I know staff at, especially amongst Japanese families. Waiting lists are pretty extensive. Quite a few have even increased tuition with no major signs of pushback from families. A few schools, including mine, gave a sizeable bump in salary to staff.
I have not done any research on why this is but some parents that joined our school said Covid caused them to take a closer look at how their kids were learning at public schools, especially with hybrid and online learning making it easier for parents to actually ‘see’ what classes were like. They were not really happy with what they saw and decided to transfer out. If I had the time and inclination, this would be a pretty fascinating line of research.
Some people seem to be jumping on this bandwagon and various international schools are popping up. At the last IB get together, there were like 3 brand new schools I hadn’t heard of. They were all just IB candidate schools and K to 6… all in the Kanto area. For example, Capital Tokyo International School just opened … a few blocks from Tokyo International School. People were talking about how it seemed a little shady to use that name.
There is going to be a cliff coming that pretty much all education facilities and organizations are going to have to prepare for, not just in Japan but worldwide. A family member of mine works for the administration of a university and they’ve been preparing for that cliff for the past five years, strengthening endowments and the finances of the school.
For those foreigners teaching in Japan, it might be important to shift from public school to eikaiwa work — or somehow working for yourself, if you can manage.
This kind of paranoia and worry is something we will all need to cope with in the coming era. The uncertainty and insecurity is going to be horrible. I’ve had a taster of it over the last few years and I don’t believe it will really go away unless you’re lucky.
A lot of people working here don’t acknowledge it, or don’t believe it, whereas others go off the other end and move on or else sit in it and stew.
I nearly ended up unemployed this year despite having all the prerequisites to land a decent job. But got there in the end and already I’ve put it all to somewhere near the middle of my mind. Because I don’t want to go mad from stress.
My view is that I probably do need a plan b in case it goes wrong in the future. This involves money to tide me over and a viable sideways career change. But in the meantime I need to keep improving my standing and skills.
The thing is we don’t know what will really happen, and my life is so good now it’s too risky to change everything because of the panic around this issue.
So thanks for the post. At least I think the next twenty years will be interesting.