This time last year I was in the same school as today and the teachers were panicking as they were convinced that from April this year they would have to teach English on their own. All sorts of publishers were pushing out well dodgy textbooks and although teachers were panicky they were actually knuckling down and getting ready.

Cut to a couple of months later and Japan had a new Education Minister who almost immediately said that elementary English education isn’t needed in Japan and proceeded to follow this up with all sorts of strange proclamations including that Japan was in a state of “human rights metabolic syndrome” especially with regards to minorities. Hmmm.

Hence this year there’s a distinct cooling in teachers’ passions for English.

After the recent election everyone was looking to see who the new education minister would be. Although English, or rather International Understanding as the subject is really called, could never become compulsory too quickly, it would be nice to have someone who was more positive in the role.

So today the results were in, and the new Minister is ….. Ibuki Bunmei – the same guy as before!

So that means English won’t become compulsory for quite a while. But it does mean that the best teachers are still free to teach to the best of your abilities in the current framework, so for the kids’ sakes, that’s what we’ll do!

PS I’ll write up today’s activities when we’ve finished the 3 days. Plus have a look for Genki English in the Nara Shinbun newspaper tomorrow!