for foreign nationals and by varying the strictness of landing examinations in accordance with the trends in overstayers, the acceptance of college or pre-college students who truly wish to study in Japan, and an environment where they can continue to study will be promoted. At the same time, strict measures against foreign nationals disguising themselves as college or pre-college students will be being taken. In this way, appropriate acceptance of foreign students will be ensured while also contributing to the acceptance of high-quality college and pre-college students through the promotion of smooth procedures for outstanding students to change to a status of residence for employment after graduation from college or other educational institutes in Japan.

## (5) Improving Training and Technical Internship Programs

### A. Improving Implementation of Programs in Accordance with Their Objectives

The training and technical internship programs have widely spread throughout the industries, including the manufacturing sector, as an increasing number of foreign nationals have been accepted for these programs. In some cases, however, foreign trainees and technical interns are treated as low-cost workers. Some of the enterprises and other organizations accepting foreign trainees and technical interns, as well as these foreign nationals themselves and the foreign organizations sending them to Japan, have failed to fully understand the objectives of the programs — “training” as learning and “technical internship” to master skills while under employment. In this respect, strict instructions to supervisors of foreign trainees and full notification to them of the program objectives will be given. Stringent examinations will be conducted through measures such as investigation of the training and internships in cooperation with the labor administration, if necessary. While taking into account protection of the foreign trainees and technical interns who have no reason to be blamed for any problems, the implementation of these programs, according to their objectives, will be improved by taking measures such as prohibiting organizations who have engaged in inappropriate practices from accepting foreign trainees for three years.

In this respect, directions will be given to encourage acceptors of foreign trainees and interns to make improvements under the present programs, through measures such as analysis and introduction of cases where some organizations have made successful international contributions through technology transfers to developing countries.

### B. Reviewing the Programs

In order to appropriately and smoothly promote and further improve the training and technical internship programs, not only improvement of their implementation but also review of the programs themselves is needed in cooperation with relevant government agencies. Specifically, consideration will be given to creating a status of residence for technical interns, which is indicated in the 2nd Basic Plan for Immigration Control, and to reviewing legal protection of foreign nationals who are taking part in on-the-job training taking into account the promotion of appropriate and smooth technology transfers. Easing regulations on company individual training that has shown few problems will be considered in accordance with changes in the company's activities. As for the training programs under the scheme of association-managed training (training programs in which trainees are accepted under the scheme of association managed training such as those run by the chambers of commerce and industry and cooperative organizations and that do not have business relationships with the accepting companies or dispatching companies), which have caused a number of problems, toughening regulations on the acceptors in accordance with the existing conditions, such as imposing greater responsibility for management of trainees, will be considered. The range of job types subject to the technical internship programs will be reviewed widely from the viewpoint of international contributions, and measures to smoothly and quickly respond to internship requests will be considered in cooperation with relevant government agencies. When considering these measures, the view of promoting skills and technology