A group of 11 Vietnamese deaf university students visited Tokyo to get some first hand, in depth knowledge about Japanese education for the hearing impaired.

They visited schools for deaf children, and met a well known deaf film director who made a prize winning movie about the life of young deaf people in Japan.

The Nippon Foundation has supported sign language programs and education for the deaf in Vietnam since 1980.

This support covers students in junior and senior schools and university. Until then, there were no schools that taught in deaf sign language in Vietnam. Thus, there was no deaf education environment.

The 11 university students are persons who are presently studying at the university level in Vietnam.

They are attending teacher training courses, and are considered the future leaders of deaf education and development in Vietnam. During their one week stay they had much to accomplish.

They looked at Japan's current deaf education programs, especially how they are taught. The fruit of what they learn is intended for integration into the development of deaf culture and education in their own country.

They attended a video program at the Tokyo offices of the World Bank that showed the Bank’s activities to help human resource development in Vietnam.

The students also visited a special cram school for deaf students run by the deaf film director, Kentaro Hayase. His school is called “Hayase’s Dojo.”

Deaf Vietnamese Children Learn Sing Language
Photo: Deaf Child Worldwide

Hayase won the Grand Prize at the Sagano Film Festival for disabled film makers with his movie “Don’t Give Up,” a story that focused on deaf children, encouraging them to live life to the fullest in spite of their disability. The film later went on to win a screenwriter’s award at the Toronto Deaf Film Festival.

Additionally, the Vietnamese deaf students visited Japanese educators of the deaf, enabling them to establish a forum for more educational information exchange in future.

They also met the first deaf person to qualify as a pharmacist in Japan, Kumi Hayase, who works in the pharmacy of the Showa University Hospital.

It was agreed that the visit of the Vietnamese students will further nurture deaf education in Vietnam and the expansion of deaf sign language.