10 percent of Indonesian care worker trainees can't understand Japanese: survey
Mainichi News 25-3-2010,,Some 10 percent of Indonesians who came to Japan in fiscal 2008 to be trained as care workers at nursing homes cannot yet understand Japanese, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has revealed.
The Indonesian trainees came to Japan under an economic partnership agreement, and after about a year in the country about 90 percent can understand Japanese, according to a government study. About half the trainees apparently study Japanese about 1-5 hours a week.
The study, undertaken in January and February this year, queried the heads of nursing homes where the Indonesians are stationed, nursing home staff, patients and the trainees themselves. The ministry received replies from 528 people at 39 institutions.
Some 19 percent of nursing home staff said the trainees had no particular problems communicating, while 73 percent said that there were occasions when the trainees did not understand, but if spoken to slowly could get the rough idea. One percent said communication with the trainees was impossible.
Only 3 percent of nursing home users, however, reported that the trainees could adequately understand them, while 92 percent said the Indonesians mostly understood but sometimes did not, and one percent claimed the trainees could not understand anything they said.
The Indonesian trainees are working toward passing the care worker exam in January 2012, and "More support for improving (the trainees') Japanese skills is needed," the ministry stated.
No comments:
Post a Comment