The Department of Labor and Employment and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority have partnered with a Japanese language school to enable hundreds of Filipino students to learn Japanese and work in Japan to ease language barrier with their Japanese employer.
TESDA executive director Sonia Lipio said that the Chiba Mode Business Nihonggo School and Richwell Training Center Services Inc. a TESDA accredited training center is now accepting Filipino students who want to learn Japanese and work in Japan.
RTCSI president Ann Quiza said Filipino students who become Japanese proficient could stay at CMB Japan and work part-time there, saying investing in and building a future career in Japan was what the program was all about.
She said the Japanese-language course in the Philippines would partner with a local college amid growing interest in learning the language among Filipinos.
DOLE-National Capital Region Director Regienald Espaldon said the new language school aimed to cater to an increasing number of Filipinos taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, a widely used exam to evaluate and certify the language proficiency of non-native speakers.
In 2017, a record 14,062 Filipinos took the exam, up 21 percent from the previous year, while the number of all examinees topped one million for the first time, according to the Japan Foundation, the test administrator.
The DOLE said the Philippines ranked third on the list of countries sending foreign trainees to Japan after Vietnam and China, accounting for 9.9 percent of the total of 228,589 trainees, according to the Japan International Training Cooperation Organization, which supports the training scheme for foreigners.
