I don’t require a car for work. My supervisor advised against getting one once but my IDP expires next August and I’m sadly from a country which requires me to do the conversion test.
Will I have to use Nenkyu to do the test? The only reason I want to do it is because my parents are planning to come and visit next year and they are at an age where it won’t be comfortable for them to walk long distances.
It would just be a bad situation if I fail multiple times and have to use up multiple leave days, lol.
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Can’t you do it on the weekends?
Talk with ur advisor, ESID.
I did for just changing my license over.. my vice principle thought i might not have to. He mentioned something about other teachers being able to take special leave, but he wasn’t sure. So he asked the office person and she said ALTs had to take nenkyuu for that. I’m in Gunma. From the sounds of it others in my city have had to take nenkyuu for the test as well.
From my understanding it should say in your contract regarding this situation. For example, in my contract it says we get to use a special kind of leave for up to 3 separate days to get our drivers license, since you usually have to go in on separate occasions to do different things like an interview, written test, and then the official driving test (at least for most Americans this is the process). So I used all 3 of my special leave days to successfully get my license and never had to use nenkyuu. But every situation/every contract is different. I live in the deep inaka, so since I need a car this is probably why we get the special leave.
Since it wasn’t a requirement for my placement and purely a personal choice, in my city, myself and every other ALT who obtained a license has had to take nenkyu. Perhaps for others where driving is necessary, maybe there’s special leave but that would be stipulated in their contract and at the discretion of the BoEs.
Yes, there was one ALT who burned at least 5 days worth of nenkyu because he kept failling. Fortunately, it took me 1.5 days – half day for the written portion and a full day for the practical test. Also, while there’s horror stories about constantly failing, aside from the ALT mentioned above most people I know have passed on the first or second try.
Yes. However, I was able to take driving lessons on the weekend, and I went to the JAF to get my license translation during Golden Week.
Thanks to holiday and work timing, I only used one day of nenkyu for getting my license, for the day of my driving test.
Hope this helps!
Yes its nenkyu AND probably not only one day, it took me 2 days to get my Australian license (because of one single fucking document), went there before 7 am, finished at 14:00 TWICE
For my contract, even though I needed a licence for my placement, I needed to use nenkyuu to handle it. In my contract, only things necessary for me to remain in the country (so visa matters) was special leave.
Yeah, I had to use a total of three nenkyu days. The first was to do the paperwork, argue with the people at the desk in a foreign language for 2 hours, and to finally take the super easy written test. The second was to fail the practical test, and the third day was to pass the practical test.
I would have had to use nenkyuu, but the office lady who works with my time off and stuff like that likes me so much that she just told me to “work from home” the days to get my license (which was only 2) and she approved it right away.
The consensus is it seems that you have to use nenkyuu unless you work something out prior.
I had to take paid leave and spent 3 days – one for the document check, and two for the course test because I failed the first time. A friend was able to later take the test on a Sunday but I’m not sure if it was special hours due to COVID restrictions. Document check could only be done on a weekday.
Yes, you gotta use nenkyu
I’m surprised by the other responses about needing to take nenkyuu. At my school there was no question that it would be special leave. I guess that means it’s another ESID situation so it would be best to ask your school/CO
I was thankfully able to pass on the first try though so I’m not sure what would happen if there were several days I needed to take off.
I’m from the UK, but I require a car for work. All of the Americans in my city had to take nenkyuu every time they took, and failed the test. I had to take nenkyuu to convert my license, but I was lucky that it was only one day.
Good luck! I just got my moped license and, although I’m sure very different than for a car, it was still super difficult. Took me a total of 3 days as well, one for the written test which I failed, another to retake and I passed, and then one for a driving test but more just like a driving class for Mopeds and that was it.
Maybe the moped written test is different, but it was pretty hard. The questions aren’t insane, but there was 70 questions in mine and you needed a 90% to pass, so missing 6 or 7 questions would result in failure. Also the wording on the questions was a bit difficult to understand at times. You need to know all the road signs, specific turning laws, specific situations you might come into. I literally got the little JAF book on Japanese road laws in order to pass lol but maybe that’s just for the moped license.
Also, a word of advice, it may be different wherever you live, but my place you NEEDED a reservation and almost all slots were booked for a month except for a special time between 4pm-5pm where they would release dates of people who canceled their reservation. It was very annoying, especially since there was an obvious language barrier that made understanding the rules and the reservations very difficult. Also the website was terrible and very hard to navigate as well lol definitely do your research before heading in to see what papers you need, how much money it is, and definitely what could be on the test. I’m not sure how much driving experience you have, but I’ve heard the pass/fail rate of the driving test is pretty rough, so honestly expecting to fail at least once may not be a bad idea. Good luck!