Extending an Invitation to High School Students Studying Japanese in Asia AFS Japan announced this April that they will host the “Kakehashi program in Japan,” a new program that aims to invite high school students learning Japanese in Asia to Japan.
This program had its start in Prime Minister Abe’s June 2017 speech at the International Conference on the Future of Asia, in which he stated, “We will provide opportunities for Asian high school students studying Japanese to live in Japan for ten months.
This will be at a scale of 1,000 students over the next five years.” Following his statement, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) incorporated the program into the 2018 budget. This year, AFS Japan plans to welcome approximately 100 students to stay in Japan for six months, starting in August.