- Coordinator for International Relations
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A Coordinator for International Relations (国際交流員 Kokusai Kōryūin ), or CIR, is a partipant on the JET Programme residing and working in Japan. Although responsibilities for a CIR vary according to his or her contracting organization, the majority of a CIR's time is spent organizing and assisting various projects related to adjusting Japanese society to an increasingly multilingual, multicultural, and international world. Many of these projects include but are not limited to: international exchange programmes, primary and secondary school visits, language classes, cooking classes, cultural lectures, as well as translating and interpreting. CIRs are employed throughout Japan at international exchange associations, prefectural offices, city halls, town halls, village halls, and boards of education.
JET is administered by CLAIR (Council of Local Authorities for International Relations) and funded by MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology).
Contents
Statistics
In 2010, there were 354 CIRs, accounting for approximately 8% of the 4,334 JET Programme participants.
Prefecture/Designated City Number of CIRs (2010) Hokkaido 9 Aomori 15 Iwate 3 Miyagi 3 Akita 9 Yamagata 5 Fukushima 5 Ibaraki 4 Tochigi 3 Gunma 2 Saitama 4 Chiba 3 Tokyo 0 Kanagawa 1 Niigata 6 Toyama 11 Ishikawa 18 Fukui 4 Yamanashi 4 Nagano 8 Gifu 10 Shizuoka 5 Aichi 6 Mie 7 Shiga 6 Kyoto 6 Osaka 1 Hyogo 6 Nara 6 Wakayama 2 Tottori 14 Shimane 19 Okayama 1 Hiroshima 4 Yamaguchi 5 Tokushima 7 Kagawa 5 Ehime 6 Kochi 16 Fukuoka 6 Saga 5 Nagasaki 10 Kumamoto 5 Oita 7 Miyazaki 14 Kagoshima 14 Okinawa 6 Sapporo City 5 Sendai City 2 Yokohama City 1 Kawasaki City 1 Nagoya City 1 Kyoto City 0 Osaka City 4 Kobe City 2 Hiroshima City 4 Kitakyushu City 3 Fukuoka City 4 Chiba City 2 Saitama City 0 Shizuoka City 0 Sakai City 1 Niigata City 5 Hamamatsu City 2 Okayama City 0 Sagamihara City 1 References
- [1] Contracting Organisation ALT・CIR Placement Numbers (July 1, 2010)
Further reading
- David L. McConnell, Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program (2000)
- Bruce Feiler, Learning to Bow: An American Teacher in a Japanese School (1991), later published as Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of Japan
External links
- CIR Homepage: the official website for CIRs all over Japan
- National AJET: the Association for Japan Exchange and Teaching
- The JET Programme: the official JET Programme website
Categories:
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