A school that was closed due to lack of students was turned into a museum. This is happening in Japan, where an average of 450 schools have been closed a year over the past two decades. All the blame for the demographic decline that led to the depopulation of rural areas and small towns.
In chronological order, the last to close its doors was Yumoto Junior High, an institution located in the Fukushima prefecture with only two students. Eita Sato and Aoi Hoshi completed their three-year education until the diploma delivery in mid-March at the school, which provides all services from transportation to canteen for only two students. . The end of classes for Sato and Hoshi was followed by the definitive closure of the institute, which had recorded the most five enrollments in recent years. At the ceremony dedicated to the two students, the school principal formally handed over the corporate flag to the mayor of Tenei village, Katsuyuki Soeta, ending the activities of the structure established in 1947.
School closures are one of the clearest signs of the decline in birth rates that has affected Japan for decades. The demographic decline in the country that began in the late 1970s has reached record levels, with fewer than 800,000 births recorded in 2022, an all-time low for this archipelago. Among the reasons is the very high cost of living, which last year ranked among the most expensive countries to raise children, a factor that does not combine well with reduced policies on childhood. This figure exceeded the expectations of the national government, which expects these figures not today but in 2030. The recent Covid-19 epidemic contributed to the rapid acceleration of the negative course, and the disaster that occurred in the nuclear power plant in and around Fukushima region in March 2011, which was located less than 100, contributed not less. Kilometers from the village of Tenei.
Today, the municipality has just over 5,000 lives, the mayor declared “an indescribable sadness.” In addition to Yumotol, dozens of other institutes have closed their doors within a few years; this is a major problem, as Le Monde emphasizes, the dissolution of these institutions further depopulates and causes rural municipalities to lose their attractiveness. Among the solutions developed to bring vitality to these areas is the transformation of closed schools into museums. One of the first to speak out on this was Haruichi Terunuma, president of Ono district associations, who urged authorities to invest in the rebirth of the most fascinating and ancient institutions.
The first step was taken with the opening of the toy museum in the building where Kurokawa Elementary School is located in Nagano prefecture. Today the museum houses more than 500 toys, all made from local cypress wood. Its creation was also made possible thanks to an online crowdfunding campaign that raised around 4 million yen (30,000 euros). “I hope the museum serves a wide area, including education for children and environmental issues, as it allows visitors to interact with wood and deepen their understanding of forest culture,” Mayor Kunio Hara said at the opening ceremony last November. .
We hope that this example will be followed by many districts. A similar future seems to be planned for Hanawa and Midori elementary schools in Tokyo’s suburbs, and the Kaichi institute, also in the Nagano district, which boasts one of the country’s most stunning wooden buildings.
In addition to cultural initiatives, Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida has promised “unprecedented” measures to reverse the drastic drop in the birth rate. These include the intention to double the budget for childhood-related policies and increased investment in preserving the education system, which is often at the heart of rural communities.
Source: Today IT

Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.