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  Anoma van der Veere

  Japan correspondent

Kazuyo Oono Elementary School in Japan’s Kochi Prefecture has closed after 150 years. “There used to be six primary schools here, but today there are only two left,” she says. “If there are no children, the school has to close. This happens everywhere.”

This is the case in many places in Japan that are rapidly aging, as is the case in this school. In 2004, the country had 23,420 primary schools, but since then about 5,000 schools have closed. At this rate, more than a quarter of schools will disappear before 2030.

It’s a hard number to fathom, but closures are very personal for students. “I feel sad that after all these years, our school has to close its doors,” says Itsuki Kawabuchi. She is in group eight with only seven others. “It’s a special place for me.”

The closure of schools comes as a result of the birth rate, which has declined at a record pace for eight years. In 2013, 1.2 million babies were born, but in 2023 there are only 758,631: a decline of 26 percent in ten years. “It is a critical situation,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hayashi said while announcing the latest decline. “In six years, until 2030, it will be our last chance to change this trend.”

According to the National Institute of Population and Social Security, the population will shrink by about 30 percent until 2070, from 125 million to 87 million people. Japanese Prime Minister Kishida described it as the “biggest crisis” that Japan has ever witnessed. Demographic change poses major problems for primary education: schools have too few children to remain open.

Reporter Anuma van der Veer visited the school’s closing ceremony in Kochi:

“There’s nothing we can do about it,” says student Rui Takahashi matter-of-factly to an almost empty classroom. Dozens of tables and chairs are stacked in a storage room down the hall. The school consists of three floors and eight classrooms, and can accommodate more than 300 students. But across all year levels combined, only 38 children attend lessons. The school has operated below maximum capacity for years.

This is why the local Board of Education decided to close the facilities. “The remaining children now have to go to another school in the area,” says Ono, the school principal in Tsuno. “But they are much further away.”

School closures are mainly felt in rural areas. Young parents move to big cities in search of work and education. Most of them reside there. It is causing a rapid exodus from the Japanese hinterland.

“There used to be a circular school building here,” says Yoshi Taniwaki, owner of the Seiran no Sato School. Its small hotel and restaurant are built on the former sports field of one of Tsuno Municipality’s closed primary schools. “Actually, I didn’t want to work anymore, I was too old for that. But when they turned this into a parking lot, no one came anymore. I had to do something about it.”

The national government is trying to attract young people to the countryside in various ways. Without success. While 11 of Japan’s 47 prefectures will see a decline of more than 30% within 30 years, greater Tokyo has grown by 2.5% since 2020 to more than 14 million people.

That’s why Taniwaki hopes to save the village by attracting tourists. “I built this place so people would come again,” Taniwaki says. “Luckily they come too.” Surprisingly, tourists were not the only ones who found their way to the village.

“I was the last elementary school student here,” Hanae Watanabe says. She was born in Tsuno, but moved to the big city to study and work. I recently decided to return to work on Seiran no Sato. “I wanted to come back, but you have to have a job,” Watanabe says. “So this facility came at the right time.”

It looks like a drop in the ocean. The Japanese Policy Council estimates that 896 municipalities are at risk of extinction. “We try to get people to come back, but in the end it’s just a brake on the inevitable,” Taniwaki says. Watanabe keeps his spirits high. “It would be nice if more people like me came back.”