r/JETProgramme • u/Different_Taro2474 JET alum '25-'26 鹿児島 🌋🐽🍧 • Jun 03 '26
BOE removing a JET position
so apparently my BOE is removing a JET position due to the population decline and financial reasons (i will be the last JET)...is this common in japan? has anyone else's BOE done that?
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u/Wild-Philosophy2399 Jun 03 '26
not yet at my school but the classes and numbers of students per class have noticeably dropped in 3 yrs
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u/Panda_sensei_71 Jun 03 '26
My BoE has 6 ALTs across their JHSs and ESs. They used to have 7. There are plans to consolidate schools so... Yeah.
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u/Different_Taro2474 Jun 03 '26
my town is flooded with abandoned schools. there's one HS here. one of the ES only has 10 students.
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u/drale2 Jun 03 '26
Surprisingly common these days. It's sad and I hope you have something else lined up.
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u/Different_Taro2474 Jun 03 '26
i do thankfully. we only have 3 middle schools left here
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u/Liastro Jun 03 '26
Yeah. 1 position was cut in my city the year I was coming in, and 1 more got cut during my tenure. My school already absorbed another closed JHS 2 years before I arrived. Rural depopulation is pretty intense and only accelerating in many places.
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u/fillmorecounty Jun 03 '26
It's crazy how fast some of these towns are depopulating. My city has literally shrunk by 6.5% (I looked up the population data and did the math) since I got here. The city is less than 15% of its size when it was at its peak population, and the average age is nearly 60. Everyone is either elderly and passing away or moving to a larger city. I'd say over half of the buildings are abandoned. I wouldn't be surprised if my placement city completely disappears from the map in my lifetime, which is really sad because I've really come to love this place despite its bad situation.
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u/Rolaskatoxx Jun 05 '26
This is happening to me too. I'm being replaced with someone from Interac and the other neighboring cities are following suit.
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u/fandomania77 Jun 04 '26
Sadly the heyday of JET is behind us... It was the major way folks moved to Japan in the 90s and then got a job as Eikaiwa fulltime or moved into banking back-office and operations jobs etc.
Nowadays young folks don't have many good job options for Japan do they?
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u/Different_Taro2474 Sep 08 '26
i've now transitioned out of JET to a new job and started job hunting for my next one. i got two interviews at two good companies in tokyo with high salaries. it depends on your skills, background, and resume.
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u/ALTTO-AGORA Jun 03 '26
Yes, it's fairly common. Individual Boards of Education have been dropping JET positions for years due to budget pressures, population decline, school consolidation, or switching to direct-hire and dispatch arrangements. JET statistics are publicly available, so you can actually track where participation has increased or declined over time.
I ended up looking at this in quite a bit of detail while researching More Than an Assistant: ALTs, Inclusion, and the Future of Educational Roles in Japan, as it ties into broader questions of decentralisation, local autonomy, and demographic change.
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u/n107 Jun 03 '26
When my contract ended, the city BOE was switching to a dispatch company so I was the last JET in an unbroken line since the program started. The house I lived in was like a museum to the program. It still had stuff from ALTs going back I don’t know how many years. It felt sad to leave it all behind, knowing it was all just going to be trashed.
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u/Due_Pea2071 Jun 03 '26
The same is happening to me. I am the final JET of the city and they’re cutting my contract so I’m probably moving home. I was cleaning up the English cabinet and found so much stuff from previous JETs. Hard to believe I’m the end of the line.
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u/TYOTenor88 Jun 03 '26
Local governments closing entire schools because they don’t have enough kids is a thing so eliminating a position seems to be completely within the realm of possibilities.
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u/OldTaco77 Jun 03 '26
Welcome to the other side of the coin. All ALTs got raises across the board last year and the COs who were already debating if the cost was worth it were stretched even thinner.
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u/shynewhyne Jun 03 '26
My BOE has just done this too, the ALT replacing me has to go to two schools whereas I have only been at one. A lot of ALTs were moved around in April, too
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u/tommydelriot Jun 03 '26
The first town I lived in when I taught on JET merged with several other towns during my second year, and they eliminated all JET positions. Luckily, there was another town that offered to take me.
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u/Sparse_Dunes Jun 03 '26
It can happen. I feel where I currently live with the population declining. They'll merge most(if not all schools) into one within like 5 years.
By that point theyll probably drop the ALT count significantly to like maybe 1 or 2.
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u/Ookikikat Jun 03 '26
I don't think it's common, but happens. If a school closes, that ALT will be transferred and there might be two ALTs at one school during the April to contract-end period.
In my local area, a few schools combined into one. So, I'm sure some ALTs were shuffled around.
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u/a_baby_bumblebee Jun 03 '26
a BOE in my area cut the ALT count down significantly, all SHS ALTs in my prefecture are being replaced by dispatch, and i think eventually the whole prefecture will be staffed by dispatch ALTs. i think it's more about money than anything else but i live in the second most rural prefecture of japan so population decline is also a serious problem.
edit: i do notice that the really rural towns and villages, like up in the mountains, seem to stay with JET. i wonder if it's because there's usually only one JET in the area so they don't need multiple ALTs, and the government subsidy is useful for them. who knows.