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Since 2020 the international schools market in Japan has grown by 7.3 per cent, from 372 schools to 399, according to data from ISC Research - a trend that its head of global research, Sami Yosef, says is being driven by several factors.

“There is a rising demand for international education in Japan, partly fuelled by increased enrolment from Asian countries, including China and South Korea,” he says.

“This trend, combined with Japan’s growing expatriate population, points to significant growth potential in the sector.”

To find out more about what it’s like leading and working in an international school in Japan and the various challenges and opportunities, we spoke to several leaders in the country to discuss five key themes. Here’s what they told us.

5 things about international schools in Japan

1. Behaviour

Matthew Parr has worked in Japan for 30 years and is head of school at Nagoya International School (NIS), an International Baccalaureate (IB) school of around 450 pupils. He is also president of the a group of 30 schools in the country.

Parr says that in the main student behaviour is studious and courteous but with challenge and curiosity. “Japan is a context in which there’s a lot of respect for schools and for teachers, so kids come in [to school] wanting to learn,” he says.

“But you still have to be a good teacher, to give them the opportunity to probe and ask questions - which they absolutely do - so you can have some very exciting and invigorating classroom environments here.”

For Ian Clayton, principal of The British School in Tokyo, home to 1,300 pupils - a mix of Japanese, European and American learners - it’s a similar picture. “We have a sweet spot in that the kids are curious, ask questions and challenge, but in a good way,” he explains.

Clayton thinks having students of different nationalities draws out the best of each culture. “There is a nice mix of studiousness and confidence,” he says.

Shaney Crawford, who has also worked in Japan for 30 years, is principal of Tsukuba International School, an IB school an hour’s journey from Tokyo, and she has a similar view. “Our students are very well behaved...there’s very little disrespect towards teachers or fighting or that sort of thing,” she says.

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There can still be behaviour issues, of course, with Clayton noting that fallouts in friendship groups can create problems - often among girls . And Crawford says that, like everywhere, online issues can occur, with “children saying things to each other online they would never say face to face”.

She says this problem of children saying things to to each other is not exactly new, but smartphones and the online world mean there are “new dimensions” around how to tackle it. “Is it the school’s responsibility? Is it the home’s responsibility? How can we partner with each other? It does add a real layer of complexity,” Crawford says.

However, in the main headteachers agree that behaviour is a really positive aspect of education in Japan.

Matt Topliss, who became principal at Kyoto International School last August, says this is very different to his past experiences in other countries.

“If we have to talk to a child about a behaviour issue, we don’t have to do it again. Whereas when I was a head in Egypt, we were constantly having to repeat ourselves,” he says.

Topliss adds that this is one reason why “a lot of teachers come to this part of the world and never leave”.

2. Safeguarding

One of the first things that international school leaders say about Japan and 51���� is that it is not possible to raise a police check on someone, or even for someone to raise one themselves to prove their file is clear.

“The privacy laws in Japan just don’t allow it,” says Crawford, noting that this is the same for international schools and state schools. “It’s a big problem and one the government is aware of and is trying to solve, but it’s a slow process.”

Given this, she says her school uses a company to vet people, including searching court records - but if an issue never reached court, the search will not return anything. “It’s not foolproof”, Crawford adds.

Topliss also laments this situation. “I was surprised, in a country that’s very organised and efficient, that there was a lack of attention to known and accepted 51���� procedures,” he says.

“We have to really double up on our safer recruitment with an interview, the probationary periods, the references we take, the way we interview and those sorts of things.”

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Crawford notes that the Japanese parliament is legislating to create tighter child protection law for all schools, which will improve things.

“I believe, in two or three years’ time, they’re planning to have a system in place but it’s slow and we’re hoping they can hurry it up,” she says.

Meanwhile, Parr says international schools in Japan will often help teachers who are moving out of country by explaining this reality to the hiring school.

“We will write to those schools and explain that yes, it’s true they cannot get [a background check] but we can attest, as the visa sponsor, that there’s nothing to our knowledge that has happened, and so forth.”

When hiring from outside of the country, this is less of a problem. If a teacher is coming from the UK, say, they can produce their own DBS check.

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In terms of the 51���� issues being experienced by pupils, Clayton says issues rarely surface at his level. Most problems can be handled by the school’s designated 51���� leads (DSLs).

He notes, too, that as the drinking age in Japan is 20, students trying to access alcohol is rare - unlike in Hong Kong and the Philippines, where he ran schools before. Clayton does say that, while rare, affluent neglect can be an issue.

Crawford, meanwhile, say mental health issues have gained more awareness in the past few years, in part due to the pandemic. “We’re dealing with several cases per year, of various seriousness,” she says.

These issues can be reported by the pupils themselves, Crawford explains, but at her school staff are required report any issues and this can help with 51����.

“We ask our staff to report anything - if they just have a kind of weird feeling about something - because somebody else might also have a weird feeling, and so we can then triangulate and say, ‘OK, it’s not just you. Other people have said the same thing,’ and decide to act on it.”

3. Recruitment and retention

As someone who has worked in the country for three decades, Parr is understandably positive about the recruiting environment in Japan. “It’s a lovely place to live and work - there’s amazing culture, history, arts and crafts and so on. So Japan has a real draw to people.”

Topliss says he has seen this first hand since moving to the country: “I’ve recruited people to Cairo so Kyoto is a dream,” he says, with recent hires included Cambridge graduates to teach English and science.

Clayton also says recruitment is strong, with almost 1,500 applicants in the last recruitment round. This means there is always enough quality to find what they need.

Retention is strong, too, with all the leaders noting that Japan is a destination that many teachers choose for the culture and lifestyle rather than high salaries.

Crawford says the location of her school - in a forest outside Tokyo - means staff who apply are very much looking for an outdoors kind of lifestyle. “I’ve not had a staff member leave for two years,” she explains.

However, one thing that can cause teachers to leave is the taxation system. “It’s a first-world country with a first-world tax system,” says Parr, adding that it’s not a place where teachers will come to “earn a gazillion bucks”.

Furthermore, benefits in kind are taxed as if they earnings. So any pupil place offered for a teacher at the school comes with a hefty cost (especially as taxes are around 33 per cent on anything over £48,000 - a threshold that a pupil place on top of a salary will likely exceed).

“Some [teachers who are] parents look at that cost and the realisation that university fees will follow after and decide to move somewhere with a more favourable tax regime, like the Middle East or Singapore,” says Clayton.

Regardless of this, though, it seems clear that there is a strong appetite among teachers to work in the country. This is likely to be helpful given the further growth in international schools market that is expected as a result of the influx of families from China and South Korea.

4. Rules and regulations

“Japan is a country that is very much based on rules and regulations,” says Crawford.

“So if you want to do anything that requires permits or authority to do something, you can encounter a lot of red tape.”

Topliss concurs, noting, for example, that the ownership of school buildings can be pain point. “Very few schools own their own building - this means that if you want to change anything, you have to go through a lot of rigmarole and due diligence. They don’t say no but it just takes years to get done.”

Many school buildings in use by international schools are actually former state schools that were vacated due to a drop in Japan’s birth rate.

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“We’re doing them a favour by keeping these buildings in operation, but it comes with so much baggage,” Topliss explains.

Clayton experienced this when his school set out to rebuild its primary campus last summer and required oversight from the Tokyo metropolitan government.

“They came in and looked at everything in the smallest detail,” he recalls. “They were very pleasant and granted what we wanted, but it was very bureaucratic. While there is a logic in being thorough, I think if some schools are dealing with that a lot it must be very time-consuming.”

Crawford notes that red tape can also impact on the everyday life of a teacher in Japan: “Banking here can be a nightmare. If you go to the bank to do the simplest little thing, it takes two hours, just because everybody has to do the paperwork and sign off on it.”

She concedes, however, that the culture of following rules and regulations means that the country is “very safe and secure” for staff.

Finally, in terms of educational delivery, international schools benefit from a quirk of the system whereby they are classed as “Miscellaneous Schools” rather than “Article One Schools” (essentially all state schools), so they do not face any curriculum requirements.

“I’ve got no ministerial downward pressure in terms of how many hours to teach Japanese for, or the textbooks we use,” says Topliss, a view echoed by Clayton, who says it is a “really positive” environment for teaching.

5. Competition and cooperation

As shown by the ISC Research data, there is clear growth in the international schools sector in Japan - underlined by the fact that Harrow, Rugby and Malvern have all opened new schools in Tokyo in the past few years.

While this might appear to create competition for pupils, the sheer size of Tokyo means there is little crossover, explains Clayton.

Furthermore, within Japan the JCIS offers a network for around 30 schools that meet twice a year, and offers support for leaders on all manner of issues. Clayton says there is also shared training and CPD within the group, and a willingness to collaborate.

“Schools are happy for other teachers to visit the school, have a look around, come in and talk about a particular thing that a school is good at. So that is all good,” he says.

Crawford, too, says that for schools in the network, it is a really positive experience: “I’ve sent two emails this week to the mailing list saying, ‘I’ve got this situation,’ and had immediate responses from other heads saying, ‘I’ve see this, too. Here is what I did.”

The group has policies in place such as schools agreeing not to poach teachers from one another, and any pupil moves between the schools are logged within the group transparently.

Parr, the current president of the JCIS, says he thinks the success of the group is largely down to the fact that the schools involved are “confident in who they are and who they serve” and so don’t feel afraid to be open and work together.

“Schools genuinely want teachers to find schools where they can live their professional aspirations and be the best teachers they can be, and for kids to be genuinely happy where they are,” he says.

“They want to raise each other up” rather than “fend each other off”, he adds.

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