What is the JET programme?

http://www.jet-uk.org/

reasons why JET is the most amazing exchange programme you can experience-

• you are taken care of. (At a meeting yesterday, someone commented on us having supervisors. Every JET has a designated person at school to - do everything for you - ie sort out your life. Where else could you never have to lift a finger, but jsut ask someone to (in my experience) organise a suitcase to be sent to the aiport for you / cancel your bills/ act as your personal interpreter and translator/ ask the vice principal questions you're too scared to/ send a fax for you/ teach you Japanese phrases/ i could go on, and for them to oblige because it's their job??)
• a free return flight to japan. 2 nights in the Hilton in Tokyo, 2 nights in the Keio Plaza in Tokyo, free days off work to go to a conference in Yokohama where people are brought in to tell you how to write a CV, what your skills are [because either we think employers are bound to know because we're all so wonderful; or not have a clue because we seemed to have lost any skills we once had, and need to be reminded how to think]...
• you get paid about the same amount as some other teachers in your school (i think) yet for half (or a quarter, or less) the amount of work
• you get to see behind the scenes of japanese culture/ society.
• Have so much free time you don't know what to do with.
• work with and meet many people from around the world
• experience lovely japanese hospitality from living in country areas far from Tokyo
• opportunities to travel - within the country and world - and save (especially if you work in a junior high school, which i don't)

Why the JET programme should be scrapped.

• Gifted and talented graduates are stripped of any chance for real development in the world of work
• No responsibility is given to the ALT (Assistant Language Teacher)
• Japanese students don't gain much from a foreign graduate being drafted into Japan, only to sit at their desk in the staff room all day
• It's a waste of money- a huge expense. We're completely over paid and under valued.
• Japanese Teachers don't know how to use ALTs. They may have received bits of training, but they don't get it.
• Japanese kids at school can't really speak English, and ALTs being there doesn't really seem to make any difference to this!
• You don't have to have any training or background in English as a foreign language teaching to be accepted onto JET. People are unqualified and often don't know the first thing about teaching, or if they do, they have a shock in store when they see the Japanese English Education system!
• The salary's rubbish due to the exchange rate, in comparison to years before when the JET salary was the same and economic situation was different.

and that's only the half of it!