Students from Vietnam and other countries take a lesson at a Japanese language school in Osaka in 2017. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

As countries tighten travel restrictions to contain the coronavirus pandemic, many foreign students are stuck in their home countries, unable to enter Japan for the new school year--disrupting Japanese schools and universities.

“It is concerning that I cannot take classes for a while,” said a 21-year-old Vietnamese student, who was visiting Vietnam for the first time in three years.

She graduated from a Japanese language school in Osaka in March and was going to enroll in a private university in Kobe this month.

But she now finds herself grounded in Vietnam, after her flight back to Japan was canceled abruptly.

Local carriers suspended all their services to Japan when the Vietnamese government tightened entry restrictions.

Her university told her the enrollment procedures can be postponed until late April.

But things are developing rapidly.

Airlines have extended their flight suspensions further and the Japanese government moved to deny entry of foreigners from Vietnam.

She plans to major in international management and land a job in trade. But now her plans are looking shaky.

“There is no way I can say for sure when I can get to Japan,” the woman said.

“It feels like I was moved further from my goal.”

A 21-year-old Vietnamese man who finished his course at a Japanese language school thought about returning to his home country temporarily before starting classes at Shizuoka University in October.

He was considering the trip home after learning he is not allowed to work part time on a student visa in Japan until he enrolls in the university.

He decided to remain in Japan, afraid he may not be able to come back once he leaves.

But that poses the challenge of how to make ends meet without a part-time job.

Each month, he spends about 60,000 yen ($558) on rent, food and communications.

He used to cover those costs by working at a convenience store near his apartment four to five times a week.

That is no longer possible.

“I don’t want to give my parents an additional financial burden because they paid for my school expenses,” he said.

The pandemic is also disrupting the operations of language schools and universities in Japan.

A Japanese language school in Osaka’s Nishi Ward was scheduled to hold an entrance ceremony with 74 students from China, Vietnam, South Korea and other countries on April 2.

None of them could come to Japan.

The school said two students may be able to make it to enroll in the school in autumn, but the rest are uncertain.

Another school, affiliated with the one in Nishi Ward, said 75 of 161 students scheduled to enter the school in spring can no longer show up.

Of the 75, 25 gave up on their plans to come to Japan. School officials will return their tuition that had already been paid.

Both schools remain closed after the government declared a monthlong state of emergency for Tokyo, Osaka and five other prefectures on April 7.

They plan to reopen in early May, but officials said they are not sure things will go as planned.

With 2,400 foreign students, Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto is also affected by travel bans imposed by various countries.

The university posted a notice on its website on March 6 calling for students who returned to their home country, including South Korea and China, to come back by March 9, when the Japanese government expanded entry restrictions for foreigners.

University officials say they are unaware of how many of the foreign students have made it back to Japan.

“We did not expect a pandemic of this scale to occur,” said one of the officials. “The section tasked to contact those students has been stretched thin.”

Many countries are expected to broaden entry restrictions in the coming months.

“It is becoming more difficult for foreigners to enter Japan as of April,” said an official with the student services division at the education ministry.

“We will ask educational institutions to take measures, such as providing online classes, to ensure that foreign students who cannot enter Japan will not be put at a disadvantage.”

According to data from the Japan Student Services Organization in 2018, 93.4 percent of about 300,000 foreign students are from other Asian countries.