The city of Tokyo will tighten qualifications for the admission of foreign students into its specialized local schools, in an apparent bid to reduce crime committed by illegal foreign residents.
Japanese media reported Wednesday some 50,000 foreigners are currently residing in the Tokyo provincial area, out of which 12,000 attend schools that exclusively teach business administration or information processing.
The new measures by the local government will only allow foreigners with a certain level of Japanese proficiency to enter such schools and will limit the number of foreign admissions to less than half the total quota.
The changes also call for schools to consistently check records of students' attendence and their financial status.
The measures come on the heels of a government survey that showed some 280 foreign students and job-seekers last year were expelled from school and had gone missing.