MEXT hopes to increase incoming foreign students by easing conditions for entry into universities

MEXT has decided to ease the conditions for entry into Japanese universities for foreign students. Up until now, MEXT has maintained that in order to enrol in Japanese universities, foreign students would need 12 years of education just like Japanese students. However, taking into consideration the differences between countries, MEXT hopes to reform relevant laws in early FY2015 so that students can be admitted starting in the fall of this year.

With this reform, MEXT hopes to achieve their goal to double the number of foreign students to 300,000 by 2020. According to JASSO, out of 135,000 foreign students in Japan for FY2013, students from China and South Korea made up 70%, while students from different education systems such as Russia and India remained low at 0.3% and 0.4% respectively.

Source: Nikkei Shimbun (Japanese only) via Euraxess Links Japan