TOKYO — At the sound of the buzzer, Kensuke Aoki starts furiously pressing rice into shape in his left palm. Adding dabs of bright green wasabi paste and quickly placing slices of mackerel on top of the rice, he completes each nigiri one after another. Three minutes and 18 nigiri later, time is up, and his instructor comes around to sort the well-shaped ones from the ill-shaped, as Mr. Aoki wistfully looks on. Just 12 have made the grade.

“It’s hard, but I am getting better every time I do it,” said Mr. Aoki, a student at the Tokyo Sushi Academy. “Speed is as crucial as quality because efficiency is what they will seek in the real world.”

Mr. Aoki, 30, believes that having a real-world sense of things will help him and his classmates gain the skills they need to plunge into the competitive market for sushi chefs in places like Germany, the United States and Australia.

Students at the privately owned academy plan to join the growing ranks of professional Japanese chefs eager to serve a growing overseas appetite for sushi. Their plan to seek jobs abroad comes as revenue is declining within the Japanese sushi sector amid a cutthroat price war within the restaurant industry overall, which means consumers expect to pay less and receive more.