本校同窓会館武陽ゆ～かり館において、未来創造コース２期生（１年）が、兵庫教育大学の外国人留学生と「Japanese Immigration Policies and Public Opinion」というテーマでワークショップを行いました。前日の発表をもとに修正を加え、留学生に班の意見についてプレゼンテーションを行い、その後留学生の意見を取り入れながら、改めて班の意見を発表しました。
外国人留学生の出身国：ソロモン、インドネシア、ガーナ、イタリア、中国、台湾
〈生徒の感想〉
I didn’t know about immigration before this class. But I learned about foreigner opinion and Japanese opinion. When I began to research about immigration, I agreed with accepting immigrants. But I changed my opinion through this activity. I think it is difficult to accept many immigrants for the first. So Japanese government must set some rules. For example, the foreigner who has some special skills for job, or much money and so on. I have been interested in immigration through this class. And I learned foreigners’ opinion from exchange students and Japanese opinion from our class mates. I think it is very important to know difference between foreigner opinion and Japanese opinion.
I enjoyed talking with a foreign student in Japan. I couldn’t speak English well but I was helped by foreign students’ kindness. So I could learn Ghanaian culture. It was fun for me to talk with a foreigner. We had a discussion about Japanese immigration issue. Albert (foreign student) said “Japanese population is decreasing now. That’s why Japanese economy is decreasing too. Immigration can be a solution to this problem. If immigrants come to Japan and get marry with Japanese and have more babies, Japanese population is increase and Japanese economy get better.” We were surprised to know that Albert was well informed about Japanese internal conditions.
I think immigration problem is very difficult and complex. Japan’s work force is decreasing now. It will be bad. So, we should accept immigrants. But immigrants may make Japan’s peace bad. This is just the problem which has no answer. I thought Japan shouldn’t accept immigrants before this class, but I could see various opinion about immigration problem after the class. Especially, if we accept immigrants, they will bring foreign culture. This opinion made me wake up. I saw only Japan’s views of immigration problem. The press of Japan is always reporting bad news of immigration problem. So I couldn’t find this easy thing. However, there is the difficult thing I couldn’t find. It is difficult for immigrants to buy something in Japan. Japan’s prices are expensive. Immigrants will not be able to buy something Japanese want. What is more, Japan’s rent is also expensive for immigrants. Even 40,000 yen is very expensive for immigrants. Japan’s workforce for the future is very important. We should think and discuss this problem.
First we are totally against immigration policy because if Japan accepts immigrants, loss of Japanese culture by them, the public order get worse, terms of employment get worse and cost of social security increase. We thought them to be bad in Japan. But after discussion against immigration policy however, we think we should be friendly to foreigners. Because we noticed that the immigrant has influence that is good for Japan. For example, “new industry and service happens by cross culture”, “a wage falls down” and “increasing birthrate measures”. We thought these are very good for Japan.Beside Japanese respect each other in society. Japanese imitate each other’s good places and are good; I think that’s social. Therefore we thought that we might have to be improved to make the livable country. The foreign student said “classification of the garbage is difficult.” We thought that improvement was necessary there.
The theme this time ‘Immigration Policies’ is very difficult. I had difficulty understanding and researching on them. I thought that Japan shouldn’t accept immigrants because I thought that Japan don’t improve the social environment to accept them. But my opinion and view were changed in this discussion. I actually heard the opinion from overseas student (our groups student is Chinese woman). I found that the viewpoint is different from our viewpoint. She said, “Japan has a good social environment.” I was surprised at that. I had thought Japan was hard for immigrants to live and work. She told us the environment in Japan is enough improved. However, she also said, “there is a case which immigrants work and work but there wage is cheap.” Their aim is learning a high technology but they can’t learn the technologies. Therefore, I thought the Japanese government must improve the social environment which they can work appropriately.