Govt Begins Online Japanese Classes for Ukrainian Evacuees

Tokyo, May 17 (Jiji Press)--The Japanese government kicked off on Tuesday a program to teach Japanese online for free to evacuees who have fled to Japan from Ukraine due to Russia's invasion.

Under the program, the Cultural Affairs Agency and Immigration Services Agency have arranged for a dozen of Japanese language schools to accept such evacuees as students.

On Tuesday, a school in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward started Japanese classes. It plans to teach such evacuees for 150 hours over the course of two months, hoping that its students will be able to engage in daily conversations.

According to the Cultural Affairs Agency, there were 984 evacuees from Ukraine in Japan as of Sunday.

The agency provides municipalities that have received such evacuees with subsidies to cover costs to employ Japanese-language teachers for them.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]