IT HAS always been a dream of Cherry Cagasan to work in Japan, and she knows that she needs to learn its language to be able to work there.
The 26-year-old student works as a project management office associate in one of the companies in I.T. Park in Lahug, Cebu City.
Cagasan said despite her stable job, she’s still inspired to work abroad.
“I’m inspired to work in Japan that’s why I enrolled myself here,” said Cagasan.
She said it is a great opportunity for her to be part of the first batch of students to take the Japanese lesson.
Despite that she is working and at the same time studying during weekends, she was motivated to continue also because she took it as an opportunity to be able to study Japanese language class for free. She said the regular class is expensive.
“It’s a stepping stone for the library to do such program because through it, we’re able to learn the beginner phase of Nihonggo class,” she said.
Cagasan graduated with an award as one of the outstanding performing students in their class.
Cagasan is among the 45 graduates of the Japanese language class in Cebu City Public Library.
The first batch is originally composed of 70 students, but only 45 have survived. Some stopped because of the schedule, while some transferred works or moved into new address.
The graduation was held on Sunday afternoon, June 23, which was attended by the outgoing Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña.
In an interview after the ceremony, Osmeña said he wants to see the said program to continue because a lot of people want to learn, but he said he is not in a position to decide on the matter.
The mayor said the Japanese language has a strong demand in Cebu, thus he is thinking of putting up a private endeavor just to cater those who are interested to learn.
“I want to let the people have the opportunity to learn,” said Osmeña.
The four-month Japanese class started on February, said the Cebu City Public Library chief librarian Rosario Chua.
Chua said when they opened the enrollment, there were around 5,000 who registered, thus they made it by batch.
“The mayor wants us to cater all of them so we make sure all those who registered, we contact them when it’s their time already,” said Chua.
The program involves the Japanese culture, language, tradition and practices, Chua said.
The original plan is to have the students have the 180-hour class which what the first batch had. To make sure they can cater those who registered, Chua said they made it to only 24 hours.
Aside from the number of registrants, she said they also considered the number and availability of instructors.
According to Chua, there is an ongoing 24-hour Japanese language class.
Chua emphasized through the 180-hour class schedule, the first batch are already qualified to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test since the 180 hours is one of the requirements.
Chua said through this program, they were able to open the library to more people.
“Before, the library is just a structure filled with books, but now it’s also a place for teaching and learning,” said Chua.