Japanese Government Subsidy on Early Education and the Rise of International Kindergartens

It is no longer news that the Japanese population is shrinking and aging. With the country's birth rate hitting record lows and having no signs of a consistent rebound, for all sorts of businesses in Japan, the prospects of an ever-tinier domestic market are a cause for great worry. And that worry will hit no industry faster than kindergarten operators. Providing a once-in-a-lifetime service, these businesses rely purely on the number of children in the country. They are stuck with the decline, having no option to target repeat customers or expand the consumer base in any way.

Of course, the Japanese government is worried as well. To halt the population decline, the state is throwing money into initiatives to get more people to get married and have children. One of the initiatives involves subsidizing early year education. The logic is that if education, often the biggest financial burden for parenthood, can be somehow alleviated, many more young people will no longer be put off by the idea of having many children. While it can be argued that the barrier to having kids is as much a matter of sociocultural values as economic costs, the government's logic has certainly made kindergarten cheaper.

With cheaper kindergarten, apparently, new choices have opened up for the fewer Japanese people that decide to go ahead and have children. International schools have always been thought of as the realm of wealthy businessmen and expatriates with special bonus packages, and international kindergartens, with their all English education and all-foreign staff, were no different in that image. Yet, because the Japanese government has decided to subsidize a part of kindergarten fees, "international classes" within the average registered kindergarten have now become more affordable for the average salaryman.

The result is, interestingly, an interest among "normal" Japanese people with zero foreign exposure, to the idea of sending their children to international kindergartens. In a way, this has been a boon for foreign English teachers in Japan, who have either had to contend with the superficial, practical approach of the "business English" classes geared toward adults, or the relatively low pay of teaching English classes to students in public middle and high schools. Now a growing option is to go into private kindergartens with relatively high pay and a blank slate to work with, provided that one is skilled at handling children.

Speaking to some of the veteran teachers in international kindergartens, one realizes that, at least for the average salaryman, the realities and ideals of sending a child to an all-English class collide in unexpected ways. Predictably, many have a vague sense of making their children more international as they grow up, knowing that speaking multiple languages, most of all English, will get their children more opportunities when they grow up. But many of the same parents also attempt to use their own children to navigate more internationally, even to the point of using the kindergarteners as interpreters when speaking to foreigners.

It speaks to the sad, simplistic understanding of how to become "more international" that many adults with no international experience hold. Three or four years of attending all-English classes will not automatically make children more international, especially when they have no complementary experience at home and are unlikely to continue having an international education after kindergarten when government subsidies run out. These children may have a vague idea of being in all-English classes when they grow up, but they will not be any more international than their peers if they receive "normal" education after kindergarten.

Indeed, while the government subsidies may make the idea of international kindergartens more popular among those who do have children, they may even become a brand-new barrier for more people to have children. The fear of foreigners that is too common among the average Japanese may put off some from having to deal with foreign kindergarten teachers, knowing that more and more of their parental peers have the expectations that since international kindergartens have become so cheap, the social expectations is to send children there for an all-English education with non-Japanese speaking teachers.

Ultimately, the growth of international kindergartens is just a happy side effect of the government subsidies. They, by themselves, will not create a new generation of internationally-minded Japanese children and parents. They certainly will not be able to replace the everyday presence and interactions with non-Japanese people through open borders that COVID-19 has, unfortunately, put a stop to. As more Japanese parents put their children in all-English kindergartens, they should think deeper about what they will do for their children after kindergarten so that all they gained during it is not simply lost over time.