Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program (9 page)

Nevertheless, the one question that I was asked over and over again during the course of my fieldwork is, Does the JET Program work? Obviously,
the answer depends on one's perspective. Judged by different criteria, the
JET Program can look either wonderfully impressive or horribly bad. In
the course of the book, we will encounter cultural preoccupations, foreign
pressures, political maneuvering, and bureaucratic decision making: these
may or may not satisfy anyone as demonstrations of "internationalization" or the "failure of internationalization." As we will see, many of the
foreign participants believe that what goes on in JET is not internationalization, while most Japanese officials believe that it is. Rather than seeking
some absolute judgment, I examine how program outcomes are treated by
participants on all sides. Are there demands for measurement? What kind? What criteria do the various parties involved in the JET Program use in
evaluating the program?

I must stress that my intent is not to discredit the JET Program or anyone associated with it. Rather, this book is an account of what happens
when everyone does their best. Through exploring the difficulties encountered on all levels by all participants, Japanese and foreign, during the initial phase of what was essentially a crash course in internationalization, I
aim to show how particular actions are sensible products of complex cultural, political, and historical forces. Before leaping to judgments about
whether the JET Program is good or bad, let us first understand the reasons
why the program came to be the way it is.

Frankly speaking, the purpose of the JET Program was never
focused on the revolution of English education. The main goal was
to get local governments to open up their gates to foreigners. It's
basically a grassroots regional development program.

A Ministry of Home Affairs official

Our main hope for the JET Program is to increase understanding
of Japanese society and education among youth in the participating
countries.

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official

If Japanese students and teachers improve their communicative
competence in English, then they have become more
internationalized. This is the goal of the JET Program from the
point of view of our ministry.

A Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture official

The previous chapter sketched the broad historical context within which
the key policymakers began to stress the goal of raising Japan's international standing. Yet the presence of deep-seated cultural assumptions about
social relations and exclusivity suggests that an "away-with-frontiers" internationalism will not come easily to the Japanese. The social, cultural,
and historical barriers to a broader formulation of Japan's national purpose
are truly formidable, and many Japanese understandably find the expectation that Japanese culture must change both perplexing and threatening.
Yet Japan has a long history of adaptation to changing environmental realities, and the perception is widespread that substantive change is inevitable
if Japan is to maintain its economic gains of recent decades.

This chapter examines the behind-the-scenes process of policy formation and the conflicting ministerial goals that became enmeshed in the JET
Program. At the national level, political maneuvering dominates: from the
very moment the idea for the JET Program was conceived, its administrative structure and implementation were affected by competing goals and rivalries between the inward- and outward-looking ministries that were
directly charged with its oversight. In moving from its conception to a system of national-level administration, a relatively straightforward and appealing idea became subject to the political complexities of forming a coalition of diverse actors.

AN UNLIKELY SPONSOR: THE MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS
GOES INTERNATIONAL

Oddly enough, the story of the JET Program begins in the Ministry of
Home Affairs (Jichisho). Literally the "Ministry of Self-Government," the
agency is ostensibly concerned with local administration, fire protection,
and tax affairs. Why would this ministry, which in 1987 was by almost any
definition one of the least "international" ministries in Japan, take control
of a program to import foreigners primarily for the purpose of teaching
English in public secondary schools?

The question is all the more interesting because prior to and during
World War II, the old Home Ministry (Naimusho), first established in 1873,
was the nation's most powerful administrative institution. It was in charge
of virtually anything related to maintaining control of the nation's population-local government, the police, religion, civil engineering, even the people's thoughts. In fact, local boards of education and the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture itself were run by officials of the Home Ministry.
Not surprisingly, the Home Ministry was hardest hit by the Occupation
purge, with 6o percent of its top officials removed. It was then broken up
into the separate Ministries of Home Affairs, Construction, Labor, and Health
and Welfare and the Police Agency. After a brief period as a special agency,
it renewed itself in 196o as Jichisho, with a much narrower mandate focused
on supervision of prefectural and municipal governments.

By the 198os, however, Home Affairs had achieved a remarkable comeback. Its former bureaucrats occupied roughly one-third of the prefectural
governorships, as well as prominent positions in municipal government.
This ministry had also become quite popular among graduates from prestigious universities who sought careers in local or national politics, for it
had the reputation of allowing aspiring politicians and bureaucrats to move
up quickly in their careers. Karel van Wolferen even argues that by the late
i98os Home Affairs had become the chief rival of the Finance Ministry as
a domestic power broker.'

Nevertheless, the involvement of the Ministry of Home Affairs with
overseas projects of any kind had been virtually nil. Why in the mid-198os would it suddenly decide to get on the bandwagon of internationalization?
The interest of this ministry in "going international" must be viewed in
the context of the rise of regionalism in Japan and the delicate balancing act
required to simultaneously promote this trend and ensure a coordinating
role for itself. While every ministry in Japan has some relationship with
local governments, for Home Affairs those governments are its client
group. This role often pits it as the advocate for local interests against other
ministries. Yet as a central ministry itself, Home Affairs stands atop the
system of local public administration in Japan.'

This dual, even contradictory, role as both proponent and coordinator of
local autonomy necessitates a continual search for new avenues to ensure
its continued leverage vis-a-vis local governments. In 1988 Home Affairs
engineered and administered the ichioku furusato (one million for hometowns) policy attributed to former Prime Minister Takeshita: the onetime
deal provided each municipality in Japan with one million yen, no strings
attached, to promote local development. In addition, as the agency charged
with promoting regional development and local autonomy, Home Affairs
has long promoted a campaign against ikkyoku shucho, or the concentration of resources in Tokyo.

In the 197os and 198os, however, local governments throughout Japan
began vigorously pursuing overseas contacts and establishing international exchange programs. Of course, some local governments had formed
independent ties with foreign cities much earlier. Prefectures and municipalities along the Japan Sea coast, for example, have a long history of trade
relations with Korea and China. But the movement to cultivate links outside a national framework has been driven in recent years by the boom in
sister-city relationships. While these were often superficial connections designed to give prefectural and municipal officials an excuse for traveling
abroad, they nevertheless represented independent contacts with foreign
entities. Some of Japan's bigger cities, such as Yokohama, now have ten or
more sister cities all over the world. Moreover, with the increase in the
numbers of returnee students, foreign students in Japanese universities,
resident foreigners, and participants in various overseas exchange programs, many prefectural governments in the i98os created an entirely new
administrative section for the oversight of international issues: the international relations division (kokusai koryuka) within the prefectural office.

The effect of these local initiatives was to force the Ministry of Home
Affairs into an uncomfortable and unfamiliar role. Accustomed to providing top-down guidance to local governments, officials found themselves mere bystanders. In addition, when local governments did approach them
for guidance on international matters, they found it frustrating to have to
rely exclusively on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and their overseas offices to be their eyes and ears abroad.

Going international was therefore a logical next step, and in 1985 the
Ministry of Home Affairs established an advisory board (kokusaika iinkai)
to research ways in which its international profile could be enhanced. The
composition of the committee was itself an admission of the ministry's lack
of experience in this area. In addition to several ministry officials, it included Okawara Yoshio, former Japanese ambassador to the United States;
Eto Shinkichi, the former president of Asia University; and William Horsley, a BBC correspondent. Based on the deliberations of this committee, the
Ministry of Home Affairs released a report in July of 1985 titled Plans for
International Exchange Projects, which mapped out a variety of possible
projects for local governments, including sister-city relationships and exchanges of local government personnel.

But it was the improvement of English language skills among local
government personnel that the board particularly stressed. Its chairman,
Tsuchiya Yoshiteru, a former vice-minister of home affairs who became
governor of Kagoshima Prefecture, recalls: "When I was in the Ministry
of Home Affairs, the government as a whole was making great efforts to
encourage international relations, and local governments were beginning
to expand the initiatives begun at the national level. . . . But the main barrier to local governments opening their doors to foreigners was English
deficiency and that made us realize the necessity of introducing real English over and above the foreign language education provided by the
Ministry of Education."3 Eto concurs: "The advisory council was concerned with many different things, including sister-city exchanges, but I
remember that Mr. Horsley and I strongly and repeatedly asserted that
local middle school English education should be changed, and this educational problem was very well understood by the Ministry of Home Affairs."}

The push for better English language instruction was given added impetus when a handful of prefectural governors approached the Ministry of
Home Affairs about the possibility of expanding the small English teaching programs that the Ministry of Education was then running in public
schools. Hyogo Prefecture's governor, for instance, was considering an ambitious plan to place a native speaker of English in every public high school
in the prefecture; Kumamoto Prefecture also wanted to markedly increase the profile of conversational English in public schools. But these local requests were being stymied by the Ministry of Education, which refused to
allocate money for anything more than incremental increases in its current
programs.