### Chapter 2. The Bill on Proper Implementation of Technical Intern Training for Foreign Nationals and Protection of the Technical Intern Trainees

With regard to the system of technical intern training, existing circumstances required a vast overhaul of the entire system, and therefore the basic direction of institutional revision was indicated in June 2014 in the "Results of the Study on the Direction of the Revision of the System of Technical Intern Training (Report)" compiled by the Sub-Panel for Discussion on the System of the Acceptance of Foreign Nationals of the Sixth Immigration Policy Panel Discussion, while the "Japan Revitalization Strategy (Revised in 2014)" (approved by the Cabinet on June 24, 2014) set out "optimization of the system to ensure thorough understanding of the intent, which is the aim of making an international contribution, and fundamental revision of the system of technical intern training for foreign nationals such as expansion of the subject occupations, extension of the training period, expansion of the fixed quota for acceptance and other matters, and submission of the necessary bill" with "the aim of transition to the new system within FY 2015".

Therefore, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare studied specific measures for revision of the system, and submitted a "Bill on Proper Implementation of Technical Intern Training for Foreign Nationals and Protection of the Technical Intern Trainees" to the 189th session of the Diet on March 6, 2015 after hearing the views of the labor and management organizations, academics and other experts at the Joint Experts Discussion Panel of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare established in November 2014. During the Diet session, an explanation was given on the intent of the system followed by questions at the plenary session of the House of Representatives, and the bill was later collectively deliberated together with the "Bill for Partial Amendment of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act" mentioned in the Chapter 1 by the Legal Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives at the 190th session of the Diet in 2016, and subsequently became subject to continued deliberations at the next Diet session. The outline of this bill is as follows.

## 1 Measures for Optimization of the System

## (1) Strengthening of the System of Supervision and Management

In order to enable the technical intern training to be implemented in line with the intent of the system, which is the promotion of international cooperation through the transfer of skills, etc. to the developing countries, etc., a system of certification of the technical intern training plans, which the implementer of the technical intern training prepares a plan for respective trainees describing the goals and contents of the technical intern training as well as other matters such as the treatment of the trainee and then receives certification from the competent Minister, is to be introduced, furthermore, provisions will be laid down to the effect of the competent Minister being able to issue an order for improvement or to render a disposition on revocation of certification where there is a problem in implementation or acceptance. Moreover, a framework is to be developed to check whether or not the skills, etc. are being appropriately acquired in line with the intent of the system, through an objective skills assessment which examines whether or not each trainee has passed a public skill evaluation exam which is included in their individual technical intern training program as their goals to be achieved,