Lotta truth, some exaggeration - "Don't blame JET for Japan's poor English | The Japan Times Online"

Don't blame JET for Japan's poor English | The Japan Times Online:

"The Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, touted as the world's largest cultural exchange scheme, has brought thousands of non-Japanese into the country to teach at local boards of education. These days, with many government programs being told to justify their existence, a debate is raging over whether JET should be left as is, cut or abolished entirely.

...the two main camps argue: a) keep JET, because it gives outback schools more contact with "foreign culture" (moreover, it gives Japan a means of projecting "soft power" abroad); versus b) cut or abolish JET — it's wasteful, bringing over generally untrained and sometimes unprofessional kids, and offers no measurable benefit (see Japan's bottom-feeding TOEFL test scores in Asia).

The debate, however, needs to consider: 1) JET's misconstrued mandate, and 2) Japan's psychotic — yes, psychotic — system of language teaching."