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Indonesian health care workers applying to be nurses in Japan have been failing the entrance exam at an extraordinary rate, according to official statistics. 

The high failure has prompted the Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to consider modifying the notoriously difficult exams. Non-Japanese applicants may soon face an easier test given in English and Indonesian, and less rigorous Japanese-language requirements, officials said.  

According to ministry statistics, only 15 of the 285 Indonesian candidates made the grade in 2011, which is an improvement from 2010 when just two of the 195 candidates passed. None of the 82 Indonesian applicants passed the test in 2009.

“We’ve had discussions with experts on the topic since last month,” an official in charge of the issue at the health ministry told The Japan Times on Monday. The government has already tried easing the language burden on the non-Japanese candidates by listing pronunciations next to difficult kanji.

Japan, which has a rapidly aging population, has been allowing hundreds of nurses from Indonesia and the Philippines to enter the country to fill a shortage of health care workers. Japan has been relaxing its usually strict immigration controls to meet this demand.

The requirements for Indonesian applicants include a minimum of two years experience at home.

“The only thing they lack is Japanese proficiency — not technical knowledge,” Sachie Shirai, a spokeswoman at Bima Cooperation for Overseas Nurses and Care Workers, told the Japan Times.

Japan allows hundreds of Southeast Asian nurses to work on short-term contracts, and started accepting nurse and caregiver candidates from the Philippines and Indonesia after the countries reached individual economic partnership agreements with Japan.