TOKYO — To encourage more Japanese youths to study abroad, a plan is in the works to offer scholarships to those taking short-term overseas courses, the Japanese education minister, Hakubun Shimomura, said during a visit to Washington.

The offer, which Mr. Shimomura said would be available as early as 2017, is tied to a series of education initiatives by Japan’s conservative government headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is eager to make the country more competitive internationally.

Speaking last Wednesday at a conference organized by the U.S.-Japan Research Institute in Washington, Mr. Shimomura said that the grants could give a badly needed lift to the number of Japanese students abroad, which has been declining steadily.

The number of Japanese students studying overseas peaked at 82,945 in 2004 and fell to 58,060 in 2010, according to the Ministry of Education. Fewer than 20,000 Japanese students studied in the United States in 2011, compared with 46,000 in 1999, according to the Institute of International Education.