THE JAPAN EXCHANGE and Teaching (JET) Programme is the world’s largest people-exchange programme. So far more than 60,000 young people from more than forty countries have participated in it. Its aims are encapsulated in its formal Japanese title: ‘A programme for the invitation of young people from overseas to carry out language guidance and other duties’ (Gogaku shidō nado o okonau gaikoku seinen shōchi jigyō). The use of the term gogaku shidō(‘language guidance’) rather than gogaku kyōiku (‘language teaching’) suggests that the intention is to recruit not professional teachers but classroom assistants or resources. The word nado (‘and the like’) indicates that the programme's participants will also be expected to contribute to the institutions to which they are assigned in other ways, for example through sport, music and drama. And the use of shōchi, ‘invitation’, rather than boshū, ‘recruitment’, strengthens the impression that this is a programme designed to further overall cultural communication rather than simply to attract people who wish to make teaching their careers.

The programme was established in 1987 under the auspices of the ministry of home affairs (now the ministry of internal affairs and communication), the ministry of education (now the ministry of education, culture, sports, science and technology) and the ministry of foreign affairs. In the following year, the three ministries jointly established the council of local authorities for international relations (CLAIR), which oversees the JET programme as part of its remit to support local government bodies in all their international activities.

Each participant in the programme is appointed as an assistant language teacher (ALT), a coordinator for international relations (CIR) or a sports exchange advisor (SEA). ALTs work in schools alongside Japanese teachers. The role of CIRs, who are usually based in prefectural offices, is to foster the prefecture's international relations. The function of SEAs is to promote the prefecture's international sporting activities. In 2014 a total of 4,101 ALTs, 364 CIRs and 11 SEAs were in post. Three hundred and sixty-six ALTs and 17 CIRs were from the UK.

When the JET Programme was established, two much smaller programmes already in existence were merged with it. In the USA, the mombushō [ministry of education] English fellows (MEF) programme (derived from the Fulbright programme) ran from 1977 to 1986 and in the UK the British English teachers scheme (BETS) or ‘Wolfers scheme’ ran from 1978 to 1986.