During a recent math class at an elementary school in Aichi Prefecture, Kamila Tamy Tida Miyamoto, 31, a Brazilian school assistant, pointed to the textbooks of Aika and Ayumi, second-grade Brazilian students who enrolled this year, as she explained concepts to them in Portuguese.
Currently, 35 non-Japanese students are enrolled at Nisshin Elementary School in Hekinan, Aichi Prefecture, comprising 10 percent of all students. Aika and Ayumi's class has four other foreign students.
Amid an increase in the number of non-Japanese children living in the Chubu region — a manufacturing hub where many foreign workers are hired — the Hekinan Municipal Government in October started dispatching a non-Japanese school assistant to each of the seven elementary schools in the city.