Tokyo — Japanese government officials announced today some details of an ambitious plan to nearly triple the country’s enrollment of foreign students, to 300,000 in 12 years, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported.

The plan, disclosed amid a looming enrollment crisis at Japanese universities, will ease visa restrictions, improve accommodations, increase Japanese-language teaching, and help foreign students find work in the country after graduation.

About 30 of Japan’s top universities will be designated as key centers for the “opening up of higher education to foreign students,” according to a joint announcement by the ministries of education, justice, and foreign affairs, and other bureaucracies. Specific details on each measure were not provided.

About 119,000 foreign students are now at Japanese universities, down from a peak of 122,000 in 2005. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda pledged to raise the figure to 300,000 by 2020 in a January policy speech. But today’s statement, which includes proposals to seek funds in next year’s federal budget, is the first concrete sign that Japan’s slow-moving bureaucracy is gearing up to bring the plan to fruition. —David McNeill