Birthrate decline, wage stagnation and the pandemic-era slowing of student mobility has pushed Japan’s government to propose a new plan to increase the acceptance and dispatch of students in the country over the next ten years.
In its first proposal drafted by the Council for the Future of Education Creation, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that the goal is to attract 400,000 foreign students to Japan from overseas institutions and to send 500,000 Japanese students abroad annually in an effort to further internationalize higher education in the country.
“In order to realize a new form of capitalism, it is important to further promote investment in people,” Kishida said, after entrusting education ministry head Keiko Nagaoka with materializing a more in-depth, second proposal by the end of April.