{"id":9848,"date":"2012-02-23T06:11:50","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T21:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=9848"},"modified":"2012-02-24T04:37:11","modified_gmt":"2012-02-23T19:37:11","slug":"yomiuri-language-hurdle-trips-up-indonesian-nurses-in-4-year-old-goj-epa-program-and-theyre-leaving-by-design-methinks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=9848","title":{"rendered":"Yomiuri: Language hurdle trips up Indonesian nurses in 4-year-old GOJ EPA program, and they’re leaving. By design, methinks."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hi Blog. Speaking of GOJ visa statuses with high to insurmountable hurdles<\/a>, here’s how the years-long (started in 2008)\u00a0bilateral program to bring over nurses from The Philippines and Indonesia to work in Japan’s medical system <\/a>is doing: As predicted. \u00a0Precisely due to “language barriers”, NJ are being relegated to lower-skilled labor and then sent home (or else, as you can also see below, going home by themselves after having enough of it all<\/a>). Again, this is the point of Japan’s visa regimes — make sure migrants never become immigrants, siphon off the best working years of their lives, send them back for whatever excuse or shortcoming you can come up with, then bring in a new batch of dupes filled with false hopes<\/a>. That way you keep the revolving-door labor market revolving<\/a>, and never let NJ settle down here and get their due for their tax and pension payments. \u00a0How nice. \u00a0But as I’ve written before<\/a>, it’s been the perpetual SOP for the GOJ. \u00a0Further comment from submitter JK follows article. Arudou Debito<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>\"Main\"<\/p>\n
\n

Language hurdle trips up Indonesian nurses<\/h1>\n

The Yomiuri Shimbun\u00a0(Jan. 5, 2012)\u00a0Makiko Yanada \/ Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.yomiuri.co.jp\/dy\/national\/T120104004687.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

\"\"<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

JAKARTA–More than half of 104 Indonesian nurses who came to Japan in 2008 through a bilateral economic partnership agreement to obtain nursing licenses have returned home, due mainly to difficulties meeting Japanese language requirements, it has been learned.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Through the EPA program, Indonesian nurses have been allowed to work in Japanese hospitals for three years as assistant nurses who take care of inpatients. They are all licensed nurses in Indonesia. The program requires they pass an annual national nursing certification test during their three-year stay.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

However, only 15 of the first group of 104 nurses who came to Japan from Indonesia passed the national exam. Among the 89 who failed the exam, 27 were granted special permission to extend their stay if they wished to because they managed to score a certain number of points on the previous exam. These nurses will take the national exam again in February.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The remaining 62 returned to Indonesia by the end of August, though they were still eligible to take the national exam. Only four of them will return to Japan to take the February exam, meaning the remaining 58 have likely given up working in Japan.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

When the first batch arrived in 2008, the national exam was severely criticized, as non-Japanese applicants were disadvantaged by their difficulty in reading complex kanji used in the exam.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

For example, the word “jokuso” (bedsore), which is difficult to read even for a Japanese if it is written in kanji, appeared in the exam.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The criticism prompted the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to simplify the exam last year. The ministry put kana alongside difficult kanji to indicate their pronunciation.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

However, Indonesian nurses were discouraged by another aspect of the EPA program. As assistant nurses, they were not allowed to conduct medical treatments such as drip infusions and injections, treatments they had engaged in as licensed nurses in Indonesia.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In Japan, they were primarily in charge of services such as table setting and bathing inpatients. After leaving Japan, most of them found new jobs in medical institutions in Indonesia.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A 27-year-old Indonesian nurse who was a member of the first group and worked in a hospital in Wakayama Prefecture said, “My exam scores did not improve as I had hoped. Eventually, I didn’t want to see kanji anymore.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The government has an EPA program with the Philippines, through which Filipino nurses are able to work in Japan. It plans to introduce a similar scheme with Vietnam.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

(Jan. 5, 2012)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Submitter JK comments:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now this is telling: “As assistant nurses, they were not allowed to conduct medical treatments such as drip infusions and injections, treatments they had engaged in as licensed nurses in Indonesia. In Japan, they were primarily in charge of services such as table setting and bathing inpatients.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Let’s face it — language isn’t what’s really at issue here — the hurdle doing the tripping is the system in which the nurses ended up being mere care-givers instead of actual nurses.<\/em><\/p>\n

What’s worse is that instead of improving the system to make better use of the NJ nurse’s talents, the GoJ is planning on rolling out a Vietnam version of the EPA!<\/em><\/p>\n

The system cannot be fixed with the mere addition of furigana.<\/em><\/p>\n

My prognosis is that rather than NJ \u4ecb\u8b77\u8005, Japan needs NJ ‘nurses’ to help treat Japanese society.\u00a0-JK<\/em><\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n

===================<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Debito here. Just on a whim, I looked up \u8925\u7621 (bedsore) as referred to above.
\n<\/em><\/strong>http:\/\/dic.search.yahoo.co.jp\/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=top_ga1_sa&p=\u8925\u7621<\/a>
\n http:\/\/dic.yahoo.co.jp\/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&stype=0&dtype=3&p=\u8925\u7621&oq=<\/a><\/p>\n

The word is so obscure that Yahoo Japan Dictionary doesn’t even provide an English translation of it.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

So for you naysayers that say, “nurses should be fluent for their job, so it’s the NJ’s fault”, obviously the standards have been set too high.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Besides, as has been pointed out, if the GOJ was really worried about kanji fluency, they could have gotten nurses from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, or Singapore, which still use (variants of) kanji. But no.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

There’s obviously more to this issue than mere common sense in hiring practices. Try bilateral trade issues, which Japan doesn’t stand to gain much from when it comes to city-states (or as far as the GOJ is concerned, disputed territories), or (shudder) bring in MORE Chinese, as higher-skilled professionals!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking of GOJ visa statuses with high to insurmountable hurdles, here’s how the years-long (started in 2008) bilateral program to bring over nurses from The Philippines and Indonesia to work in Japan’s medical system is doing: As predicted. Precisely due to “language barriers”, NJ are being relegated to lower-skilled labor and then sent home (or else, as you can also see below, going home by themselves after having enough of it all). Again, this is the point of Japan’s visa regimes — make sure migrants never become immigrants, siphon off the best working years of their lives, send them back for whatever excuse or shortcoming you can come up with, then bring in a new batch of dupes filled with false hopes. That way you keep the revolving-door labor market revolving, and never let NJ settle down here and get their due for their tax and pension payments. How nice. But as I’ve written before, it’s been the perpetual SOP for the GOJ.<\/p>\n

Yomiuri: More than half of 104 Indonesian nurses who came to Japan in 2008 through a bilateral economic partnership agreement to obtain nursing licenses have returned home, due mainly to difficulties meeting Japanese language requirements, it has been learned.<\/p>\n

Through the EPA program, Indonesian nurses have been allowed to work in Japanese hospitals for three years as assistant nurses who take care of inpatients. They are all licensed nurses in Indonesia. The program requires they pass an annual national nursing certification test during their three-year stay.<\/p>\n

However, only 15 of the first group of 104 nurses who came to Japan from Indonesia passed the national exam. Among the 89 who failed the exam, 27 were granted special permission to extend their stay if they wished to because they managed to score a certain number of points on the previous exam. These nurses will take the national exam again in February.<\/p>\n

The remaining 62 returned to Indonesia by the end of August, though they were still eligible to take the national exam. Only four of them will return to Japan to take the February exam, meaning the remaining 58 have likely given up working in Japan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,34,26,4,16,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bad-business-practices","category-exclusionism","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-government","category-labor-issues","category-problematic-foreign-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}