Foxconn, the Taiwanese technology giant, said Tuesday that it will send student interns under the age of 16 back to their school in Yantai, East China's Shandong Province, and pledged to investigate the use of minors. 

Foxconn told the Global Times in an email that 500 of its so-called interns were between 14 and 16 years old. Its plant in Yantai employs around 60,000 workers and 10,000 interns.

The announcement came after the China National Radio (CNR) reported Tuesday that since September vocational school students in Yantai were forced to take internships at the local Foxconn plant and some teachers said they were required to send interns to the factory to meet quotas set by the local government.

The company apologized to the students who are under the legal working age in its email to the Global Times. The company said it will also ask the schools to launch an investigation and will punish Foxconn staffers involved.

An anonymous official with the Communist Party of China Yantai City Committee stressed that the internships at Foxconn "adhere to the country's laws and regulations," and the students were taking part in "a normal internship of up to one year and were not sent on orders of the government."

"The plant is short of labor, as some workers from Henan Province have returned to Zhengzhou, where Foxconn built a new plant," the official told the Global Times.

The CNR reported that some 20,000 workers are needed by the Yantai plant.

The Yantai government supports Foxconn as it is important to the province, said the official, adding that interns are paid up to 2,000 yuan ($319) a month and most of them are satisfied.

However, interns reached by the Global Times said they were not happy with the work experience and complained the work was exhausting.

A 16-year-old student with the Shandong Engineering Vocational and Technological School told the Global Times that he had to work 11 hours a day.

"If I end my internship, I will lose my graduation certificate and will be dismissed by my school," he said, adding that about 3,000 interns from his school work in the company. "Most are from 16 to 20 years old, but some are under 16."