Missing teacher: Japanese course at USP attracts manga fan – 07/01/2023 – Education

In the year in which it completes six decades, the undergraduate course in Japanese at the University of São Paulo is facing a serious crisis with the lack of professors and, in the second semester, it should have to close the night class.

The situation, also experienced, to a lesser or greater degree, by other courses at the FFLCH (Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences) and other USP units, is a reflection of a period in which the university, due to budget constraints , could not replace teachers who retired or died.

In addition, in 2022, the rectory defined that half of the vacancies of retirees would no longer be replaced in the units of these professors. Instead, they began to be distributed throughout the university, with the aim of creating new courses.

“In 2011, we had nine professors. With their retirement and death in recent years, today there are four”, says Wataru Kikuchi, director of the Center for Japanese Studies at USP.

In addition to them, there is also a fifth temporary teacher, who has no bond and is paid for classes only at the end of each semester, as a lecturer.

“Seeing the course in this situation moves me”, says, moved, student Marcus Wada, 22, son of a Brazilian mother, American father and grandson of a Hiroshima bomb survivor.

Despite the problems, the Japanese course continues to be sought after by students —according to the coordination, 90% of students entering in recent years are Brazilians with no Japanese ancestry.

What initially motivates these young people to choose Japanese at the Faculty of Letters is their fascination with Japan’s pop culture, mainly manga (comics) and anime (animations).

Anime fan since she was a teenager, Monique Mosso, 22, will graduate this year in Japanese. From a family of Italian descent, she opted for Japanese without speaking a single word of the language.

Now fluent, he even had difficulties, in some moments of the interview with Sheet, to remember how to say, in Portuguese, words in Japanese that came to mind automatically. “I joined because of my interest in anime, but I fell in love with the Japanese language and culture,” she says.

The crisis causes many disciplines to stop being taught and, even to follow the minimum of the curriculum, it is necessary to count on the goodwill of the professors, who double the workload with the same salary and, when sick, avoid absenteeism or take license.

Scarcity gives rise to accusations that Eastern culture is devalued by the university itself and suffers from prejudice. “The yellow ones are made invisible”, says teacher Leiko Morales.

The competition for teaching vacancies generates tension between the FFLCH departments themselves —which include other departments that offer degrees such as history, geography, philosophy and social sciences.

“The university’s budget is restricted, and spending on retirement has increased a lot”, says Paulo Martins, director of FFLCH. “Letters is in serious trouble, as are other departments,” he says. “In history, for example, the situation is also chaotic, the number of professors has dropped from 70 to less than 40.”

Ana Paula Megiani, vice-director and member of the FFLCH Teaching Positions Commission, which decides which courses the hiring authorized by the rectory go to, explains the deficit. “With the vacancy freeze until 2022, our demand was for 75 professors”, she says. “We got 58, and the distribution was defined by the committee, which has representatives from all departments.”

According to her and the FFLCH director, there was no demand for the Japanese course. Mamede Jarouche, who was the representative of the Department of Oriental Letters on the commission, told the Sheet who forwarded, yes, the Japanese request.

Tension in the midst of scarcity is aggravated by the fact that vacancies released have been divided between 2022 and 2025. According to the rectory, the distribution was made so that “the units could plan and seek talent, avoiding a high number of competitions in a short period of time”.

“The units were able to request the anticipation of vacancies, and 100% of requests were met”, stated the press office.

A total of 876 vacancies were granted until 2025, which, according to the rectory, will restore the number of professors that were at USP in 2014, when hiring was suspended. Currently, the university has 5,336 active professors and 3,349 retirees. Each year, about 11,000 students enroll.

Regarding the decision that 50% of vacancies for retirees in the units be distributed throughout the university, through competitions, the rectory stated that “it is necessary to have mobility in the replacement”.

“Units in the implementation phase need to have the prospect of receiving new professors. New areas have emerged, such as artificial intelligence, the impact of social networks, gender identities and energy transition, and the mobility in replacing professors allows this research to be developed .”