Introduction

Genocide, environmental crises, and armed struggles during the last ten years have resulted in the highest ever recorded number of displaced people worldwide: over 100 million (UN News, 2022). Waves of displaced learners—this intentionally broad grouping including those with refugee, asylee, and a variety of temporary protected statuses—have catalysed a suite of relevant services at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Those initiatives include credential/prior learning evaluation, bridging or pathway programmes providing language training, mentorship programmes, legal clinics, and so forth (e.g., Hartley et al., 2018; Sontag, 2019). Moreover, regional compacts have been established which are relevant to higher education access (e.g., Sarmiento, 2014).

Japan is a country known for being largely closed to immigration and notorious for admitting very few refugees (Horiuchi & Ono, 2022). The admission of displaced learners is a new phenomenon in Japan, beginning with only a handful of institutions in 2017 and expanding considerably with the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

As of 2022, Japan’s foreign population stood at just 2.4% of its overall population, and the country admitted only 44 out of 10,375 asylum applicants in 2019 (ISA, ). However, more Japanese HEIs have begun to host displaced learners, reflecting a possible moderation of refugee policy. Specifically, HEIs appear to be admitting learners who would otherwise qualify as refugees outside of Japan, providing a place for them to live, complete their studies, and potentially to find a job.

This chapter considers HEI supports for displaced learners in Japan, a topic on which there is a dearth of scholarship and a lack of comprehensive data. We analyse how international officers at Japanese HEIs describe the enrolment of and support for displaced learners. To our knowledge, this work is the first of its kind to consider the intersection of migration policy, higher education administration, and the internationalisation of higher education. Drawing from a thematic analysis (Saldaña, 2021) our findings show a willingness on the part of Japanese HEIs to host displaced learners and provide generous financial packages to them, as well as the prevalence of short-term and precarious legal statuses in Japanese humanitarian protection. Furthermore, we identify differential treatment of displaced learners based on nationality. We conclude that local and national government can do more to assist displaced learners and the HEIs hosting them; we recommend harnessing the momentum of support given to Ukrainian evacuees any applying it to other nationalities, and we probe the implications, on Japanese refugee policy, of admitting displaced learners. This conclusion is connected to an expansive understanding of security as discussed by Rothschild (1995) among others, moving beyond a construction of security as relevant to nation states and considering the security of people, itself involving economic, social, and political security.

We begin by examining extant refugee policy in Japan before turning to the internationalisation of higher education in comparative and Japanese contexts. A discussion of research methodology follows, along with a presentation of our findings. We conclude the chapter noting the implications of our project for future research and for migration policy in Japan.

Refugee Resettlement in Japan

While Japan, alongside other comparatively wealthy countries, serve as primary funders of the supranational architecture supporting refugees, refugee resettlement in Japan by number of displaced persons lags far behind most other countries. Japan was the fourth highest governmental donor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2022 (UNHCR Global Focus, 2022), yet the country remains strongly against admitting refugees. To illustrate this, in 2020 the Ministry of Justice received 3936 asylum applications, yet only recognised 47 applicants as refugees (Human Rights Watch, 2022). Japan’s refugee recognition rate was just over 1% for 2020, a rate that was in fact higher than previous years.

In comparison, three fellow Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member states hosted more than one million refugees in 2019: Colombia, Germany, and Turkey (Amnesty International, 2022). Given this state of play, it is useful to briefly parse the legal and policy framework limiting refugee resettlement in the Japanese context, identifying ways in which displaced people experience policy liminality (Unangst & de Wit, 2021). By policy liminality, we refer to learners being “positioned between [policy] discourses rather than being centered within a cohesive suite of federal, state, and institutional-level policy initiatives” (Unangst et al., 2022a, 2022b, p. 44), a circumstance with import for future policy iteration. Policy liminality may be perceived (reported) by learners, and, we argue here, it may also be identified by policy actors such as university administrators closely connected to the development and implementation of relevant policy levers.

Dean and Nagashima (2007) argue that Japan “did not become a party to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (the Convention) and its 1967 Protocol (the Protocol) until 1981 … [and it was] not until the mid-1970s, when Indo-Chinese refugees began to arrive on its shores, [that Japan had] to face the issue of refugees within its national boundaries” when absent legal and social welfare frameworks became clear (p. 482). In comparison with other OECD states where civil society has played an active role in supporting refugee resettlement, Flowers (2008) observes that “there was a noticeable absence of Japanese NGOs until 1989” and that those emergent NGOs have, broadly, had relatively positive relations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and antagonistic relations with the Ministry of Justice, a circumstance that again has inhibited the further development of policy at the nexus of migration and protection, perpetuating “Japan’s pattern of low compliance with the Refugee Convention’s norm of protection” (pp. 335, 339). This resulted in refugee status being granted in 330 cases from 3544 overall applications for asylum between 1982 and 2004 and “although it became possible to grant a form of humanitarian status after 1991, this has happened in only 284 cases” (Dean & Nagashima, 2007, p. 482). Akashi (2021) notes that through 2019, Japan’s national yearly quota for resettled refugees was 30.

Tarumoto (2019), among others, has connected constrictive policy around displacement to an exclusionary, ethnonationalist construction of Japanese identity:

A myth is that Japan is (and/or should be) a racially homogeneous country without having immigrants … The myth is based on, and is enforced by, Japanese essentialist ethnonational identity: Japanese must share the same origin of race along blood lineage. As a result, Japan holds fewer foreigners and immigrants within for a highly industrialized country. As of the end of 2016, foreign residents comprised only 1.9 per cent to the whole population, that is 2,382,822. (Ministry of Justice [MOJ], 2017, p. 8)

Public perception of immigration also remains largely negative (e.g., Green, 2017). Indeed, “in Japan, the definition of ‘immigration’ or ‘immigrants’ is highly elusive. There is no public consensus or official definition of the terms” (Endoh, 2019, p. 326). Immigration as an umbrella concept tied to displacement illuminates possibilities and limitations around humanitarian protection specific to the national context.

What does the process of obtaining protection in Japan look like from the perspective of the applicant? As summarised by the Japan Association for Refugees (JAR) in 2017, key challenges include that the interpretation of “persecution” is extremely narrow and typically limited to threats on a person’s life or personal freedom. Additionally, asylum seekers must provide objective proof that they cannot return to their home country, which is very difficult for displaced individuals to provide. In terms of the process itself, all relevant documents are available in Japanese only, neutral interpreters may not be available for interviews, and rejected applicants are not given an explanation as to the grounds for rejection (JAR, 2017).

In all, Japan has one of the lowest concentrations of immigrants in the developed world and admits very few refugees. Yet despite these low numbers, the government has been slowly opening the door to increased immigration and the foreign population has been gradually increasing, largely due to concerns over the rapidly aging population. These efforts to increase the foreign population have been made quietly and largely away from the public eye (Green, 2021). The admission of displaced learners could represent a similar attempt on the part of the government to quietly admit refugees through a different means. Rather than having to directly change the very strict refugee admissions criteria, admitting refugees as “displaced learners” or “evacuees” may work to achieve similar humanitarian goals while being more palatable to the public. At the same time, admitting individuals as displaced learners rather than refugees places the burden of teaching Japanese, providing housing, and basic necessities on the host institutions rather than the government. Before we delve further into the Japanese higher education system we will first look to the comparative context.

Higher Education Access: A Comparative View

How, in a comparative, trans-national context, may higher education access and support structures for displaced learners be categorised? As a first step, it is important to emphasise that more economically developed contexts host a minority of the world’s displaced people (e.g., Ergin, 2020), while countries that account for just 1.3% of the global GDP hosted 40% of all refugees in 2021 (International Rescue Committee, 2021). Higher education systems and institutions in those settings respond in distinct ways informed by national specificities and a range of resource streams. In the Turkish setting, for example, federal-level policy, developed as millions of Syrians entered the country, facilitated new Arabic-language degree programmes on the Syrian border, with a tuition-free status and scholarships available to Syrian learners. This policy, offered in a higher education system with limited student places allocated through exam scores, generated a backlash (Ergin et al., 2019). In Ethiopia, as described by Woldegiyorgis (2020), refugee-background students from neighbouring countries account for the largest proportion of degree-seeking international students in the country. Tamrat and Habtemariam (2020) outline that Ethiopia’s Out-of-Camp Scheme has, since 2010, enabled “self-sponsored refugees among the 20,000 Eritreans who live in Addis Ababa to attend local private higher education institutions on a fee-paying basis” with many of those fees being funded through remittances from the Ethiopian diaspora.

A variety of more and less supportive policy approaches are in evidence across OECD member states. A recent Eurydice report concluded that 22 national systems analysed reflected “top-level steering documents covering higher education [that] mention asylum seekers and refugees, while an almost equal number (19 systems) say nothing” (European Commission et al., 2019, p. 13). The most comprehensive policy approach was identified in Germany where “a number of actions addressing recognition of qualifications and prior learning, bridging programmes, guidance and counselling services and financial support” were in place alongside a “clear budget allocation” (European Commission et al., 2019, p. 13).

Across national settings, there is often a gap between policy supports for approved refugees and asylees and those with pending status or temporary status. In the United States, even states with the highest concentration of refugees infrequently offer in-state tuition to asylees with pending cases (Unangst & de Wit, 2021). There are no established federal sources of funding for higher education among displaced learners, though eligible learners might eventually be able to access sources of funding aimed at lower-income learners, individuals leaving the foster care system, or other pools of money supporting established student equity groups. In Australia, asylum seekers “are treated as international students and are ineligible for Federal Government financial assistance programmes” (Hartley et al., 2018; Webb et al., 2019)”, leaving 23 of 43 Australian HEIs to offer stopgap institutional scholarships (Dunwoodie et al., 2020, p. 248). Thus, a range of policy responses is evident across more economically developed systems, though the most coordinated efforts have supported the degree-course enrolment of tens of thousands of recently arrived refugees.

Displacement Alongside Internationalisation

How can we understand the alignment of Japanese internationalisation policy with refugee policy? Internationalisation here refers to—as defined by Knight (2003)—“the process of integrating international, intercultural or global dimensions into the purpose, functions, or delivery of postsecondary education” (p. 2). A specific avenue for internationalisation has been proposed by Leask (2010, 2015): “internationalisation at home” refers to internationalisation activities that centre on the experiences of institutional students, staff, and faculty present on the home campus, and on engaging with international elements via (formal and informal) curriculum, professional development, and all other institutional activities. As argued by Unangst and Barone (2019), internationalisation at home frequently engages community actors, who “add capacity and direction to … college internationalization efforts” (p. 191). Indeed, there is an entrenched history of coordinated internationalisation activities across the Japanese higher education sphere, with clear government directives promoting internationalisation in education since the 1980s (Burgess et al., 2010). Billions of yen have been invested in degree courses offered in English; international student support services are well-funded; the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme welcomes international teachers; and various excellence schemes including the 2014 Top Global University Project (Nonaka & Phillips, 2017) have been implemented. Support for international students varies by university type: major public universities as well as some larger private institutions have courted international students since the 1980s (Burgess et al., 2010). However, in spite of increased efforts to recruit international students, Yonezawa (2019) notes that “there is no specific ‘internationalization expert’ category among the university staff in Japanese universities… [as] departments allocate different types of staff members from both academic and administrative groups” to engage with specific initiatives (p. 378).

In sum, nationally coordinated internationalisation policy is well established in Japan but generally decentralised at the institutional level. Furthermore, as Nonaka and Phillips (2017) have argued, internationalisation or kokusaika policies “may be largely driven by the economic or political desire to compete globally (Ishikawa, 2009; Kariya, 2014), rather than by the desire to respond to changing economic and population realities such as Japan’s rapidly aging and diversifying society” (p. 15). Here, it seems clear that internationalisation conditions contribute to what we term policy liminality on the part of displaced learners: existing national and institutional structures do not engage with expansive definitions of internationalisation policy or practice that might problematise or interrogate what internationalisation means in the context of a global displacement crisis equivalent to the 14th most populous country in the world (UN News, 2022).

Recent Innovations Across Japanese HEIs

As noted by Kuroda (2020), Japanese HEIs are free to develop tailored admissions policies and procedures, although all universities require students to take and pass an entrance examination as a prerequisite for admission. Japanese HEIs comprise, as asserted by Yonezawa (2019), “777 universities divided into national (86), local public (91), and private (600) institutions” (p. 376). University size and focus can vary considerably in Japan. The former “imperial” universities, founded by the Japanese Empire starting in the late 1800s, represent the major public institutions typically hosting the largest numbers of international students. There is likewise a large range of private universities, with some HEIs, such as Waseda and Keio universities, representing the elite of Japanese institutions and similarly admitting a relatively larger number of international students, while others can be quite a bit smaller and more parochial.

Broadly, limited engagement with displaced learners is evidenced across the Japanese higher education system. Some of that engagement is taking place under the auspices of initiatives spearheaded by various non-profit groups. For example, the Syrian Scholars Initiative was a scholarship programme developed by a foundation associated with International Christian University to support Syrian students impacted by the conflict in that country, this work being done in collaboration with the Japan Association for Refugees (JAR). This effort has been relatively small scale in terms of students enrolled. Six students were admitted to Japan in 2016, and per a 2017 JAR report, the second iteration of the programme garnered 1091 applicants with the goal of admitting eight (JAR, 2017). Kalicki (2019) has described how JAR, during the first year of this initiative, framed it as partly inspired by the success of private refugee sponsorship in the Canadian setting, where private donors, religious groups, and businesses sponsored Syrians fleeing conflict. The six Syrians initially selected were exempt from tuition fees and benefitted from private sponsorship of travel costs and language training. Students paid for living expenses via part-time jobs and were made aware that working visas would be available to them upon graduation.

Similarly, the Japanese Initiative for the future of Syrian Refugees (JISR) operated by the Japanese International Cooperative Agency announced that up to 150 master’s level Syrian students would be accepted over five years, with this programme developed in collaboration with the UNHCR. Participants were living in Lebanon and/or Jordan at the time of application, were required to be 22–39 years of age, and attended one of seven participating universities in Japan.

Most recently, the Japanese government began admitting Ukrainian nationals in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Where the Syrian Scholars Initiative and JISR have been small-scale precedents in admitting displaced learners to Japan, the Ukraine crisis represents a clear expansion of these initiatives. As of March 2023, Japan has admitted a total of 2211 Ukrainian nationals since the onset of the conflict (MOJ, 2023). Data on the exact numbers of displaced learners among Ukrainian evacuees are not readily available, but listings published by the Japan Student Services Organization, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), show 52 Japanese universities hosting approximately 200 displaced Ukrainian students, and another 66 Japanese language schools hosting approximately 250 Ukrainians as of March 2023 (JASSO, 2023).

Given the expansion of academic institutions in Japan sponsoring and supporting displaced learners with the onset of the Ukraine crisis, it is necessary to understand in more detail the activities of Japanese host institutions, the kinds of services and financial support they provide to displaced learners, how these institutions interact with government and other non-governmental organisations, and the types of challenges they face.

Methodology

To understand how Japanese HEIs have been supporting displaced learners, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with individuals charged with assisting international students at both public and private institutions. Given the focus on HEIs, we have excluded Japanese language schools although, as noted above, Japanese language schools host a reasonably large number of displaced learners and are important sites for future inquiry. The authors contacted most of the 18 universities participating in the Japan Educational Pathways Network (JEPN), a network of private universities, and the Pathways Japan non-governmental organisation. Eight of the former imperial public universities, including Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Kyushu, Tohoku, and Hokkaido universities were additionally contacted for interviews.

There were eight interviewees in total, including staffers based at four private universities, three public universities, and the Pathways Japan NGO. Owing to the sensitive nature of the topic and the sometimes rigid rules in place for administrators when discussing university activities, interview subjects and their university affiliations are kept confidential in order to allow administrators to freely express their opinions. Pathways Japan had no objections to being named directly. Interviews were conducted both in-person and online, between 1 December 2022 and 16 January 2023. Interviews were semi-structured, with a number of common questions and also the ability to transition onto other topics or issues as necessary. Discussions were conducted in either English or Japanese, at the discretion of the interview subject. Japanese language interviews were translated into English and checked for accuracy. Interviews lasted 45 minutes to one hour on average.

To organise and analyse the interviews, transcripts were subjected to a thematic analysis (Saldaña, 2021, p. 175). Each of the authors independently reviewed the interview transcripts, coding for recurrent topics and issues, grouping interview details into several broad themes and then noting the subcomponents for each theme. The authors’ thematic notes were then compared and compiled, leading to the establishment of our categories and subtopics of discussion.

Given the study’s small sample size, broad generalisations about displaced learners and relevant administrative coordination are not possible. However, despite these limitations, some general trends in the reception of displaced learners are apparent. Japanese HEIs, according to our data, confront similar challenges as they admit and seek to support displaced learners and likewise anticipate similar issues going forward, particularly regarding the long-term residence of displaced learners and the procurement of resources to support them.

Results

Displaced Learner Support

In discussing university support, we narrow our terminology, referring specifically to “student evacuees” as this is the term used by HEI-based interview participants. Student evacuees are students admitted to Japanese HEIs who could make a credible case for status as an asylum seeker or refugee. Furthermore, this term refers to students entering Japan to escape conflict or persecution, rather than students in Japan at the time a crisis unfolded. It is worth noting that while a small number of student evacuees from Syria and Afghanistan came to Japan before the Ukraine crisis, the vast majority of student evacuees to Japan are now from Ukraine. The discussion around admissions, visa status, and benefits is therefore oriented around Ukrainian evacuees except where noted.

Our data indicate, with respect to international student support, that many departments in national universities have specifically appointed faculty members to assist international students with daily-life issues, and that many offer degree programmes in English. Private universities are more variable: the relevant HEIs in our sample ranged from the highly internationalised with classes and administration entirely in English, to those having a very small international student population with classes and administration almost completely in Japanese.

Differences between public and private universities also extend to how they support student evacuees. All of the private universities represented in our study are members of JEPN, a group of 18 universities operating in tandem with the Pathways Japan NGO, to receive and support Ukrainian evacuees. All of the public universities sampled were acting independently of any organisation or network. That is, the public universities exhibited very little pooling of information or resources. Even within public universities, our participants note that there can be very little cooperation across institutional units (or silos). At least some of this independent streak can be attributed to strict rules and operating procedures in Japanese public universities, where budgetary and administrative hurdles impede collaboration and coordination.

Apart from an outlier HEI, the Ukraine invasion was the first instance of student evacuee enrolment at all universities sampled. However, there is precedent for universities to receive displaced students as all of the public universities included in this study enrolled a small number of students from Myanmar, those students becoming displaced with the 2021 coup d’état. However, these Myanmarese nationals were admitted as regular students and only “became” displaced after arriving in Japan. Several Japanese universities likewise hosted Afghan civil servants and university teachers from 2011 to 2019 as a part of a government programme, but these individuals were admitted as regular, short-term students and required to return to Afghanistan on the completion of their studies (Japan International Cooperation Center, 2021).

Of the universities analysed, overall international student population size ranged from about 1.5% to over 50% of the total student population, or from a low of 36 international students to a high of approximately 2500 students. Each university had admitted a relatively small number of Ukrainian evacuees, between one and nine, and it was most common for the universities to admit no more than three evacuees. Similar rates of evacuee admissions are confirmed by the available statistics (see, e.g., Pathways Japan, 2022).

Our interviews reflect that university admissions processes highly prioritised some connection to Japan, particularly familiarity with the Japanese language. If Japanese proficiency was low, a high level of English was required, and all universities had the expectation that student evacuees would work hard to improve their Japanese abilities during the initial period of admission. Across the universities we studied, all evacuees who gained admission were female and of typical college age; one university administrator noted that college-age males are most likely involved in the fighting in Ukraine. University administrators uniformly reported positive feelings toward hosting student evacuees, such as “I am happy to be able to provide these opportunities to them. They are all very good students” (Public-4), and “I’ve told them I’ve worked with thousands of students, but I think this has been the most meaningful and impactful project that I’ve worked on in my career. I’m happy that I’ve been able to help them” (Private-1). We will address a number of points concerning student evacuees below: admissions, visa status, public and private funding, and challenges with student evacuee hosting efforts.

Admissions

All universities sampled initially admitted Ukrainian evacuees as non-matriculated auditing students for up to one year. One significant difference between public and private universities was the possibility of extending students’ stay. One public university, for example, only admitted Ukrainian evacuees coming from home universities having an exchange agreement with the Japanese institution. Much like a typical study abroad programme, the Ukrainian students could receive course credit for their classes in Japan and would be expected to leave the country after their one year stay. Private universities, by contrast, demonstrated more willingness for extension: after an initial six month–to one year period, student evacuees seeking to continue study could, upon passing an entrance exam, be admitted as matriculated degree-seeking students and continue to receive identical financial benefits for the duration of their studies.

The short initial period of student evacuee enrolment is partly attributed to the timing of the Ukraine crisis. Ukrainian evacuees began to enter Japan in May 2022. The Japanese academic year usually starts in April, with entrance exams several months earlier, typically in January or February. All universities accepted Ukrainian students in an expedited manner due to the emergency situation, opting to evacuate the students as quickly as possible rather than waiting until the start of the next semester. As such, the universities were not able to admit the evacuees as a part of the regular admissions cycle.

The other justification behind the short initial period of enrolment related to language study. In that first period of admission, language learning is vital for evacuees, a good understanding of Japanese being required for university entrance exams, themselves a prerequisite for study in programmes offered exclusively in Japanese. These entrance examinations are notoriously difficult to pass, with admissions to many universities being highly competitive even for Japanese nationals (Kuramoto & Koizumi, 2018). University administrators in our study made no mention as to whether any special allowances would be given to evacuees taking the examinations; admitting any such special allowances could be controversial. Moreover, very strict admissions rules at most institutions indicate that any special considerations for student evacuees will be minimal.

Should the evacuee be unable to pass the entrance examination, a distinct possibility given the difficulty of obtaining strong Japanese proficiency in such a short period of time, according to our interview participants their fate would be unclear. One option for the host university would be to extend the duration of the evacuee’s stay under the same status, giving them the opportunity to re-take the entrance exam again the following year. Alternately, facilitating the evacuee’s transfer to another institution might be another option. In a worst-case scenario, the evacuee might forego an academic path and instead try to find work in Japan. Having intensively studied the Japanese language, the idea, according to Pathways Japan, is that the evacuee should be better placed to obtain a position. Among private university staffers, the assumption is that the evacuees will not be returning home in the near future, and that universities will potentially be supporting them for several years. In the case of the public staffers interviewed, we learned that evacuees were only admitted on a short-term basis with no clear possibility of entering a degree programme. Discussions regarding the continuation of student evacuees’ status were ongoing at public universities, but no decisions had been made at the time of the interviews.

Visa Status

All student evacuees were admitted to Japan on short-term visas without recognition of refugee status by the Japanese government. In the official parlance, these students are referred to as “evacuees” (hinanmin), rather than “refugees” (nanmin) (Takahara, 2022). This is an important distinction, where “refugee” implies long-term, potential permanent residence in Japan, while “evacuee” denotes a short-term stay. There is also an important distinction between evacuees and refugees in terms of the benefits available. Officially recognised refugees are entitled to permanent residency in Japan, are able to bring their immediate families with them, can participate in a government-sponsored resettlement programme with Japanese language and cultural instruction, and can obtain vocational support at no cost (Akashi, 2021). Student evacuees are entitled to none of these benefits, are not permitted to bring their families, and are the responsibility of their sponsoring institutions rather than the government.

After entering Japan on a short-term visa, according to study participants, almost all evacuees changed their status to a “designated activities” visa, rather than a student visa. “Designated activities” is a broad designation that has been used in several different contexts, including as a work visa for highly skilled professionals (MOFA, 2015a), a stopgap measure for university graduates engaged in paid internships, and for individuals on a working holiday in Japan with financial reserves of at least 30 million yen (MOFA, 2015b). The designated activities visa is usually given for a period of six to twelve months, with the possibility of renewal before the visa expires.

According to the interview participants, designated activities status carries with it both advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is that it provides more flexibility than a student visa. Under designated activities, a student is not required to maintain a full-time courseload. Unlike a student visa, should a displaced learner on a designated activities visa drop below full-time status they are not required to leave Japan. This can be especially helpful for learners adjusting to life in Japan or experiencing mental health problems stemming from their earlier experiences in conflict zones. By the same token, if academic life proves too challenging for any reason, evacuees can easily transition to work without having to immediately change their visa status.

Although the designated activities visa affords a reasonable degree of flexibility to students, the main disadvantage is its short period of validity and the accompanying instability. Student evacuees must renew their visas annually, with the criteria necessary for renewal being unclear and subject to the discretion of immigration agency officials. Evacuees’ residency is not guaranteed unless they are able to switch to a more secure, longer-term visa such as a student or working visa. Considering its advantages and disadvantages, most university administrators had a favourable assessment of the designated activities visa, commending its flexibility over instability concerns; we note that student-focused research might well produce different results. Only one university helped change Ukrainian evacuees to student visas, although another university was planning on having evacuees change to student visas if they were admitted to a degree programme.

Discussion of the designated activities visa also indicates the differences between Ukrainian, Syrian, and Afghan evacuees. All three groups of evacuees have used the designated activities visa, but it has been applied differently to Syrians and Afghans. According to the Pathways Japan representative we spoke with and one of the university officials, Ukrainians are encouraged by the immigration agency to maintain the designated activities visa, while Syrians and Afghans are discouraged from using it. Syrians and Afghans are asked to maintain either a student or working visa and are only permitted to obtain a designated activities visa as a stopgap measure, for example, if they graduate from a Japanese university and are trying to find a job. If Syrians or Afghans apply for a designated activities visa, the processing time is reportedly around six months, with a heavy burden of proof to justify the application. Ukrainians, on the other hand, are reportedly able to obtain the designated activities visa in a matter of hours with little apparent difficulty. University administrators are also confident that Ukrainians’ designated activities visas will be renewed without much trouble from immigration officials, at least for the foreseeable future.

One administrator (Private-1) believes the differential treatment of Ukrainians is a conscious government decision: Ukrainians are the victims of international aggression, which is a breach of international law. This is fundamentally different from the civil wars or internal instability that Syrians and Afghans have encountered, and, as such, Ukrainians are entitled to favourable treatment. Another administrator was much more direct (Private-2), attributing favourable Ukrainian treatment to racial preferences on the part of the Japanese public. In this view the Japanese government exhibits a distinct racial bias, likely because of ingrained racist tendencies in Japanese society, which has resulted in more positive media coverage of Ukrainian evacuees and more favourable treatment by government. As the international literature has reflected on the racist migration and education policies to which displaced learners are subjected (e.g., Villegas & Aberman, 2019), Japan seems to be implicated alongside other more economically developed countries and this issue must be interrogated further.

Public and Private Funding

Past refugee support in Japan has exclusively been in the public sphere, with national and local government responsible for refugees’ expenses and integration until they are able to work and sustain themselves in Japanese society. Student evacuees are different in that the HEI, either public or private, is responsible for evacuees’ wellbeing. Evacuee support often blends the public and the private, where a public university might use taxpayer money to finance an evacuee’s stay but could also solicit private donations. Likewise, private universities have in some cases utilised local government funds to underwrite the cost of supporting evacuees. In both scenarios, however, government has little direct involvement in evacuee support.

According to our respondents, there is not much variation in funding packages for student evacuees across public and private universities, where all universities sampled provide free tuition and housing, as well as a monthly stipend of 60,000–80,000 yen per month for Ukrainian evacuees. Travel expenses to Japan are usually covered as well. All universities bear some amount of the burden in housing and educating student evacuees, although there are some differences in how funds are obtained. One of the private universities we studied exclusively utilised its own internal budget (Private-3), one underwrote evacuees’ costs with its own budget and donations from its alumni association (Private-2), and another had a more layered approach, securing additional funding from the local government, a corporate sponsorship, and through the Nippon Foundation (Private-1), a philanthropic organisation that has been donating funds to universities hosting Ukrainian evacuees as well as to evacuees directly (Kageyama, 2023).

Public university staffers, by contrast, indicated a much higher level of instability in funding and were more likely to utilise donations to underwrite the cost of hosting student evacuees. Three of the public universities created specific “Ukrainian disaster relief funds” to solicit donations—aimed at supporting Ukrainian evacuees alone—but all relevant staffers observed that long-term financial support for evacuees is an ongoing challenge. One public university official was explicit that, despite donations, evacuees’ funding packages could be guaranteed for only one year (Public-4). Moreover, just one of these HEIs received additional support from their local government and none received financial support from other organisations.

While public and private universities generally appear to eschew major collaborations with outside organisations, Pathways Japan is much more collaborative. Funding is secured through donations and crowdfunding, various domestic philanthropic foundations, religious organisations, and corporate sponsors. In December 2022, Pathways implemented its own scholarship for student evacuees, looking to support four to five evacuees annually, regardless of nationality, admitted to undergraduate or graduate degree programmes in Japan for up to four years. In addition, Pathways maintains direct communication with various government officials, including contacts in the immigration agency, MEXT and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Reportedly, MEXT officials have been participating in JEPN meetings regarding Ukrainian evacuees. None of the universities, by contrast, report any direct collaboration with national government agencies or ministries. Private universities affiliated with the JEPN and Pathways Japan may be able to indirectly access government officials through links with Pathways Japan, although this does not appear to be the case with public universities.

Challenges

University officials outline a number of challenges in supporting student evacuees. One of the primary issues is the instability students face in admission and funding. Private universities are able to at least offer the possibility of a longer-term stay, but residency beyond one year is not guaranteed at any of the institutions interviewed. Programme admission remains a problem for student evacuees, where there are significant hurdles to passing university entrance examinations in Japanese after only one year of study. Student evacuees may have a comparatively easier time gaining admission to English-language programmes, which are offered for a limited range of degrees at major public and private institutions, but the problem of limited space and highly competitive admissions remains. If evacuees are unable to pass entrance examinations, what is the next step available for them? Will they be able to acquire enough language skill to transition into working in Japan instead? Will they be able to stay in Japan under a different type of visa? The universities sampled did not have any answers to these questions.

Insecure funding appears to go hand-in-hand with the short initial period of enrolment at public universities, where despite soliciting donations and occasionally collaborating with local government, public universities simply lack the financial ability to make long-term commitments to student evacuees. Along the same lines, with limited funds, limited expertise, and little prior experience hosting evacuees, public and private universities lack the capacity to address some of the problems evacuees face, particularly Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other mental health issues. According to one subject, “These students are struggling, and yet there are very few resources for them to seek help … There aren’t very many therapists or counsellors who can help them in English, much less Arabic or Ukrainian” (Private-2). The lack of resources across multiple sectors thus remains an ongoing challenge for university officials.

One respondent pointed to minimal government involvement with student evacuees as exacerbating the problem of limited resources. Although the national government has not prohibited universities from sponsoring evacuees, it has not been actively helping them. Pathways Japan similarly criticises government response to evacuees as being decentralised and lacking integration across departments. According to this perspective, there is a need for better communication across government, as well as for government to collaborate more closely with the private sector. With universities playing the central role in receiving student evacuees, a significant question is to what extent national and local government should be involved in supporting evacuees. For the most part, university officials would like to see additional government support.

In discussing the challenges of supporting student evacuees, several HEI officials mentioned the differential treatment of Ukrainians. Though the conflict galvanised support for some evacuees, acknowledgement of and support for displaced learners of other nationalities has been less forthcoming. The number of admitted Ukrainian evacuees is much larger than all other categories of displaced learners, in spite of the fact that Ukrainians only started being admitted to Japan in 2022. Media attention, donations, visa flexibility, and general support have skewed disproportionately in favour of Ukrainian evacuees. Pathways Japan notes, for example, that their crowdfunding efforts for Syrian and Afghan evacuees brought in 3.5 million yen in 2021, while similar efforts for Ukrainian evacuees reached a total of 8 million yen in 2022.

Discussion

Overall, we find a positive attitude toward admitting and hosting student evacuees among Japanese HEI constituents. University administrators almost unanimously report that students, faculty, and staff have a positive impression of hosting student evacuees. However, while evacuee hosting efforts have increased, student evacuees still make up a very small portion of most universities’ student bodies, with usually no more than three evacuees at any given institution. The student evacuee experiment has gradually grown in scale and appears likely to continue expanding given the positive assessments so far, but limited financial resources, relevant training for staff and minimal government support could impede the stability of HEI support going forward.

Support for student evacuees is generally the same across public and private universities studied, although both appear to be much more likely to support Ukrainian evacuees than other nationalities. Neither type of institution is able to guarantee long-term residence, but private universities are at least able to offer the possibility of an extended stay. Public universities, by contrast, appear only able to accommodate Ukrainian evacuees for one year, after which their situation is unclear. Public universities may have good intentions, but instability after evacuees’ initial period of residence could be potentially harmful as they try to navigate their next move without any certainty. Overall, Japanese universities appear to have successfully evacuated some, mostly Ukrainian, students out of conflict zones and have been generous in their initial funding but need to consider the longer-term implications of hosting evacuees. Greater involvement with, or collaboration from, local and national government could potentially help universities in securing more long-term accommodation for evacuees and overcoming some of the limitations in expertise and resources HEIs are grappling with. This relates to de facto and de jure migration and education policy.

Incongruities in the treatment of evacuees of different nationalities at national and local government levels should also be given attention. There is a perception on the part of some university administrators that racial biases play a factor in the favourable treatment of Ukrainian evacuees. Racial bias is frequently covert, and public approval of Ukrainian evacuees compared to displaced learners or refugees of other nationalities likely plays an important role in the favourable treatment Ukrainian evacuees receive. This comparative privilege may be the result of positive media coverage, broader systems of racism/racialisation in Japan, or some combination of these factors. One challenge for government and university administrators is to extend the momentum and positive sentiment for Ukrainian evacuees to other nationalities, admitting and serving comparable numbers of displaced learners and thereby contesting exclusionary policies. This would serve to further internationalisation at Japanese HEIs and would offer an opportunity for those HEIs to (re)consider their raison d’être.

The Ukraine conflict and the subsequent expansion of student evacuee reception represents a subtle but significant shift in Japanese immigration and refugee policy. The student evacuee pathway is a new avenue for the Japanese government to evacuate refugees from conflict zones to a safer environment. For a country like Japan that admits very few refugees, the evacuee route appears to be more palatable to both the public and government. Indeed, the number of admitted evacuees in 2022 alone was already far greater than the number of all refugees admitted between 2000 and 2022. However, these evacuees are not given an acknowledged refugee status and are unable to receive a similar level of benefits. Their stay is inherently short-term and precarious, likely with consequences for individual wellbeing. The reception of student evacuees thus represents a shift toward a perhaps greater level of openness to refugees, but Japan still lags far behind other countries, and questions over the longevity of displaced learners’ residency in Japan remain.

Limitations to this study should additionally be noted. Our sample size was small and was not necessarily representative of Japanese HEIs as a whole, but the depth of the interviews does raise some interesting points regarding the reception and treatment of student evacuees. More research is needed on this topic, especially as evacuees settle in Japan for longer periods of time. While this project focuses mainly on university outreach to student evacuees, interviews with evacuees themselves regarding their experiences in Japan will provide important data and will help identify areas for improving evacuee policy/programmes. In focusing exclusively on Japanese HEIs, we did not address language schools; as there are a reasonably large number of student evacuees and displaced learners at those institutions, future work might examine how they have been received and compare levels of support between HEIs. Additionally, research on displaced students residing in Japan at the time of a crisis in their home country is called for as those individuals will likely have some Japanese proficiency and already be enrolled in a degree programme.

Conclusion

Japan has one of the lowest rates of refugee admissions in the world, typically approving less than 1% of asylum applications in a given year. However, its higher education sector has been gradually internationalising. Located at the intersection of these phenomena, a side door to students displaced from conflict areas appears to be slowly opening in Japan, starting in a limited capacity in 2017 and expanding considerably with the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Although these displaced learners are not given official refugee status, hundreds were admitted in 2022 alone. This chapter has looked to this new category of displaced learners or “refugees by another name” coming to Japan to study, asking how and to what extent Japanese Higher Education Institutions are able to support this newly-defined and dynamic group.

Based on exploratory interviews with university administrators, we find that a small number of student evacuees have received a positive reception and generous financial support. However, admissions decisions were in most cases made on a short-term time horizon, with student evacuees only being guaranteed residency for a maximum of one year. More support and expertise from local and national government as well as civil society actors could go a long way in stabilising the situation of displaced learners and alleviating some of the burden faced by HEIs at present, which are grappling with policy liminality as institutions, just as learners grapple with liminality at the individual level. In addition, that investment of resources would bolster human security in Japan and beyond.

There are two major challenges going forward. On the research side, more information about government plans and priorities regarding displaced learners is needed, as is a comprehensive understanding of how HEIs address displacement. This chapter has attempted to take an initial step in this direction by interviewing university officials, discussing their activities, and identifying the problems they face, but quite a bit more work is needed. On the policy side, the Japanese government and public must contend with the question of what exactly humanitarian protection entails. Should displaced learners in Japan be considered refugees? Should they be admitted on a short-term basis under the responsibility of universities and language schools, which is not the predominant model in economically developed settings? Are the displaced learners coming to Japan refugees by another name, or do they reflect a new category of temporary, precarious humanitarian protection?