I am a language school student. I have been going to classes and passing exams. However, recently I got sick and missed a week and a half of class. Problem is, this term started halfway through october and the rest of october was a holiday. I have been informed they are required to report to immigration if attendance is less than a certain threshold for a given month, and because of the holiday and missing over a week of classes, I am going to be reported.
Realistically how fucked am I? I’m sure I’ll get the “they are coming to deport you right now” jokes, but seriously. Where might this cause me problems? Will it prevent visa renewal in the future? Will it prevent getting a work visa in the future?
Also, I did not go to a clinic or anything. I just let the sickness take its course. I have no medical record to back myself up
17 comments
>Will it prevent visa renewal in the future?
It’s possible if your attendance rate is low.
>Will it prevent getting a work visa in the future?
I’m not sure on working visa for now.
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What you can do is to go to a doctor and get a proof of your sickness.
Honestly you really shot yourself in the foot by not going to a clinic and getting a record. It will affect your student visa renewal for sure.
The immigration office only cares about the overwall attendance rate. Since you still have 1 year to go, it should not be difficult to maintain it above 90%. Just relax and make efforts to go to school on time.
Yes it will effect your student visa renewal, no it won’t effect your chance of getting a working visa.
Language schools treat this crap seriously and so do jobs so, get into the habit of going to the doctors if your sick.
Did you email your school/teacher to say you’d be put sick? Not as good as a clinic receipt, but better than nothing?
You should be fine, provided you go to the rest of your classes for the rest of the year. Immigration is not going to chase up every student that takes a week off school.
It’s possible that your attendance percentage could impact your final grade, but most employers don’t care about what grades you get in school – only that you graduated.
It’s also possible that it could turn up on any future visa applications you make, and could lead any future student visas being delayed etc.
Or, since the whole visa renewal process seems to be more strongly influenced by how much the examiner enjoyed their breakfast on the day your visa application turns up on their desk than seemingly any actual relevant information, there might be no consequences whatsoever.
In any case as long as you’re not being expelled just make sure you go to the rest of your classes and if you’re sick again, get a note from a doctor to exempt you from any other unexplained absence. Schools like to threaten students with things that aren’t legally actionable here (in my experience…), so it’s probably nothing to worry about.
https://ibb.co/Xky1pzX
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This is what my orientation book says. Sorry for the pics and if they’re shit, don’t feel like typing it on phone lmao
More info anyway
it really depends on your school. if school thinks you are risky they might stop sponsoring you.
yes they can revoke your visa.
consult with your school on how to remedy this.
not sure now but I think 80% attendance rate was considered normal a few years ago, and I got above 90% everyone thinks I am super diligent or something.
I skipped almost a whole month of school because everyone in my class was catching covid and they wanted me to come anyway. School was annoyed I refused to come and threatened the same thing. Ended up that month only me and and two other people in the entire school didn’t catch covid. Found out later it was because so many students were in the same dorm/share house so isolating was pretty difficult. Dropped me down to about 90% attendance. Got workvisa no problem. It’s overall attendance that’s important. Sounds like they are trying to scare you to not miss anymore class.
They’re going to report you for not going to classes during the holiday? Are you sure about that?
The school’s rule about missing a certain % of classes per month sounds like an internal rule for flagging problematic students and not an actual immigration requirement. The rule is illogical and ridiculous because some months could only have 1 or 2 classes which means if you miss them you have a 0 attendance rate for that month and are then subject to deportation. Rest assured that’s not how your attendance is looked at for immigration purposes and this is just an odd practice by your school for detecting regular absentees. If your overall total attendance is above 80% then immigration have no reason to question you.
Keep in mind, however, the school is its own private entity separate from immigration and they have their own rules and expectations. They are currently sponsoring your stay here and could withdraw that at any time if they decide you’re a liability or your attendance is poor (yes even if it’s above or around 80%). So you will want to keep in close communication with them and stay in their good books.
I think immigration only care about overall attendance record.
Mine attendance record was messed up in second year (senmon gakkou)
1st year it was about 90%-95% attendance
2nd year was about 40-50% attendance rate
I was warned by my teacher during second year, but still manage to cover it up overall.
Nobody cares
If the last part of October was a holiday then they can’t (shouldn’t!?) count that part owards your attendance.
I’m not sure how much “missed time” you can have, but counting holidays as absences makes no sense. At the very least tell that to them/immigration if it comes up.
This is for a work visa but I started out as one visa type (humanitarians I believe) and about one year in I “changed jobs”. The quotes are there because I was doing the same job at the same places but my main boss (private company to city government) changed. I was still doing both jobs as was decided by everyone related to this (hard to explain but just understand it is the case). Due to no work changing I didn’t change my visa, my works said this was ok too. Well 2 years later when it was time to change my visa they asked why I didn’t report this. They had me write an explanation to why and a few months later I got my visa, no penalties or anything. They just told me I need to report any change but because I have a good record all around and my work backed me up, it was ok.
Moral of the story; keep your record clean and not shiny, have others (particularly higher ups) be there to lend their support and have proof, ie go to the clinic as it won’t cost more than 3000 yen and plenty of time.
You should be fine, just make sure to say sorry and you’ll be more careful in the future to the immigration people if they come asking.
What you need to do, is contact immigration, and tell them your side of the story directly.
Despite what all the people on reddit say, Japanese immigration officials are typically very reasonable.
If possible, schedule time to go to the office directly, if that is impossible, call them. They have English speaking staff too.
They let me stay after skipping out on 200,000 yen or so of taxes that I was unaware I owed, they just want an explanation of what is going on.
Rule #1: get a shindansho.