Our Achievements

In September 2006, an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) was signed between Japan and the Philippines. However, the PAD Foundation, recognizing the high aptitude of Filipinos for the nursing care profession, began providing Japanese language education—which it anticipated would be absolutely necessary—more than a year before the agreement's signing, and continued to train many Filipinos as human resources for Japan. The Philippine government ratified the EPA in October 2008, after an unexpected delay, and finally, on May 10, 2009, the first group of EPA volunteers from the Philippines arrived in Japan. During that time, the PAD Foundation continued its patient and even more thorough Japanese language education. The leader of the first group of visitors was a PAD Foundation graduate who already possessed a high level of Japanese language proficiency. Furthermore, due to prior study abroad, the PAD Foundation graduate was able to take the exam a year earlier, and became the first Filipino to pass the EPA Certified Care Worker exam. Indeed, the PAD Foundation has continued to cultivate outstanding Filipinos to this day, acting as a pioneer in EPA human resource development.

To maximize the effectiveness of human resource development, the NT Group began offering national examination preparation courses in Osaka in July 2010 to provide thorough guidance to care worker candidates who came to Japan under the EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement). Through meticulous instruction, the candidates' performance improved remarkably. While the courses were initially only available to candidates in the Kansai region, some facilities have heard about the courses and have continued to have students commuting from Nagoya by Shinkansen (bullet train) since the beginning. Furthermore, to enable courses for those in remote areas, online classes connecting facilities in Ibaraki Prefecture via the internet began in August 2016. To date, 165 EPA care worker candidates have come to Japan through the PAD Foundation, and 50 are scheduled to take the exam from 2019 onwards. Of the 115 candidates who have taken the exam in the past, 51 were assigned to nearby facilities and took the exam preparation courses. Of those, 41 passed, resulting in a pass rate of 80.4%. Furthermore, 30 of those candidates were graduates of the PAD Foundation, and 27 of them passed the exam, resulting in a pass rate of 90%. It is particularly noteworthy that all candidates who became EPA care worker candidates after studying abroad passed the exam. Given that the overall EPA pass rate is 45.1%, the high pass rate of the NT Group is a source of pride for us.

The PAD Foundation took on the challenge of utilizing a student exchange program to cultivate elite caregiving professionals. After initial training at the PAD Foundation, students not only acquire language skills but also gain caregiving experience while mastering more advanced languages—a course designed to select a select few caregiving professionals. Thanks to this, a total of 52 students have participated in this "Study Abroad + EPA Course," and all of those who have taken on this challenge have passed the national examination and are now actively working as key players in caregiving teams in Japan.