Indonesian nurses must pass test for license in Japanese within three years or leave the country

Working here, making eight times your former salary, learning the language and refining your professional skills = awesome

I think that's a good idea. Korea has the opposite problem in that it pays little attention to the actual ability of its foreign workers to adapt to the country and gives its workers little incentive to learn the language. Japan generally takes the opposite route though:

"I have the impression Japanese people are very strict about timekeeping and they work very quickly and carefully," Erli Ridwan, a 35-year-old nurse from Aceh, told a news conference in Tokyo on Friday, a day after arriving.

Ridwan will be paid 152,500 yen ($1,390) a month, more than eight times what he earned at a Jakarta hospital, to work as a nurse's assistant.

In return he and his compatriots must study for and pass a nurse's licence in Japanese -- a language he barely speaks at present -- within three years, or leave the country.

"Personally I think it would be good if they could work without these restrictions," Indonesian ambassador to Tokyo Jusuf Anwar told the news conference.

With more than a quarter of Japanese expected to be aged over 65 by 2015, the country faces a labour shortage that could weigh on growth.

That sounds reasonable to me. I would expect that most other people would jump at the chance to live and work in a country making eight times their salary with the opportunity to learn a new language at the same time, as well as go over their studies one more time in the new language to make themselves even better at what they do.

On the cultural differences:

Apart from language concerns, employers in largely secular Japan must deal with the unfamiliar religious practices of staff from mostly Muslim Indonesia.

Television has shown hospital managers anxiously consulting compasses to calculate the best places for the new arrivals to pray in the direction of Mecca.

Dietary requirements will also be a sticking point. Pork is a staple of the Japanese diet and drinking alcohol with colleagues is a long-standing custom.

Nothing wrong with any of that. Consulting the direction of Mecca is no big deal, and nobody should have to eat or drink anything they don't want to anyway.

This paper in Japanese by the way says that there's another test for care workers, but this one must be passed within four years:

半年間、日本語などの研修をした後、医療機関や介護施設で働きながら勉強する。看護師は３年以内に、介護福祉士は４年以内に国家資格を取らなければ、帰国することになる。

For half a year, after studying Japanese, they study while working in health institutions and nursing facilities. Nurses have to pass a national test within three years and care workers within four years, or they will have to leave the country.