Press Releases
Memorandum of Cooperation Upon Creation of an Educational and Cultural Exchange Opportunity For Japanese Specialists
April 11, 2024
On April 11 (April 10 local time), in Washington, D.C., Mr. AI Koichi, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, Embassy of Japan in the United States of America, and Ms. Lee A. Satterfield, Assistant Secretary of State for Education and Cultural Affairs, signed a Memorandum of Cooperation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, on the one side and the Department of State of the United States of America, on the other side, for the creation of educational and cultural exchange opportunities for Japanese specialists.
- This MOC aims at increasing the number of Japanese-language teachers in the United States in the future, based on the shared understanding between the relevant authorities in Japan and the United States on the importance of promoting Japanese language education in the U.S., which was reached at the policy dialogue held in October last year. The policy dialogue was based on the Memorandum of Cooperation in Education signed between then Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology NAGAOKA Keiko and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May last year.
- The Japanese and U.S. authorities confirmed that this MOC expands the number of organizations that provide training opportunities for Japanese language teaching assistants in U.S. educational institutions and provides participants of such training programs an opportunity to horn their skills further by allowing them to extend the duration of stay to a maximum of three years.
- It is hoped that this MOC will lead to an increase in the number of young people working as Japanese language teaching assistants in schools in the United States, and that more of them will obtain teaching certification to choose a career as a Japanese language teacher in the U.S.
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