Six ministries formulated an outline July 29 of measures to attain the goal of increasing the number of students from abroad to 300,000 from the current 120,000 by 2020, including simplifying immigration procedures for them, government officials said.

The ministries, including the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the Justice Ministry, plan to flesh out the measures when making budgetary requests for fiscal 2009 beginning next April.

The outline envisages simplifying screening procedures for students at the time of entry into the country and when they renew their stay permits.

It calls for cooperation between universities, and Japanese embassies and other diplomatic establishments to open counseling services abroad for those who want to study in Japan.

It also seeks to increase the number of Japanese universities that give admissions for entry while students are outside Japan.