Free Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program by David L. McConnell

mapped out a variety of possible
projects for local governments, including sister-city relationships and exchanges of local government personnel.
    But it was the improvement of English language skills among local
government personnel that the board particularly stressed. Its chairman,
Tsuchiya Yoshiteru, a former vice-minister of home affairs who became
governor of Kagoshima Prefecture, recalls: "When I was in the Ministry
of Home Affairs, the government as a whole was making great efforts to
encourage international relations, and local governments were beginning
to expand the initiatives begun at the national level. . . . But the main barrier to local governments opening their doors to foreigners was English
deficiency and that made us realize the necessity of introducing real English over and above the foreign language education provided by the
Ministry of Education."3 Eto concurs: "The advisory council was concerned with many different things, including sister-city exchanges, but I
remember that Mr. Horsley and I strongly and repeatedly asserted that
local middle school English education should be changed, and this educational problem was very well understood by the Ministry of Home Affairs."}
    The push for better English language instruction was given added impetus when a handful of prefectural governors approached the Ministry of
Home Affairs about the possibility of expanding the small English teaching programs that the Ministry of Education was then running in public
schools. Hyogo Prefecture's governor, for instance, was considering an ambitious plan to place a native speaker of English in every public high school
in the prefecture; Kumamoto Prefecture also wanted to markedly increase the profile of conversational English in public schools. But these local requests were being stymied by the Ministry of Education, which refused to
allocate money for anything more than incremental increases in its current
programs.

    While the idea of improving communication-oriented English looked
good on paper, enormous barriers stood in the way of implementation, including internal resistance within the Ministry of Home Affairs, the problem of funding, and the fear of being accused of encroaching on the turf of
the Ministries of Education or Foreign Affairs. In the mid-198os, Nose
(pronounced No-say) Kuniyuki was a career official in Home Affair's secretariat (a catchall department for high-priority projects); he was charged
with drawing up plans for specific programs based on the recommendations of the advisory council:
    I remember when I first made the original proposal for the JET Program in early 1985, my boss turned it down because the jurisdiction of
our ministry was primarily domestic affairs. He said we had absolutely
no experience with international policies, and that it was something
Foreign Affairs should do. At that time my proposal was to establish an
exchange program for people in local government offices; it was closer
to what became the CIR [coordinator for international relations] category in the JET Program. My idea back then was that municipalities
rather than prefectures should play a role in international affairs. I
thought that local governments should start to open their gates. We
had lots of meetings with mayors and talked about a lot of different options; but unfortunately, at that time there were not many cities and
towns who would accept a foreigner.'
    Nose and his co-workers then toyed with the idea of sponsoring foreign
youth to teach English in public schools, but this time their superiors
raised the objection that such a program would be a clear violation of the
Ministry of Education's jurisdiction.6 It was looking more and more likely
that the idea for JET was doomed when help suddenly came from an unexpected quarter.
    In late 1985, conflict with the United States over Japan's $5o billion annual trade surplus intensified. Under heavy American pressure, Prime
Minister