As the number of younger generation is decreasing, the number of the closed public high schools is increasing in Japan. In fact, Kanagawa prefecture has closed twenty-four prefectural high schools since 2000. Therefore, knowledge about how to use closed high schools is increasingly important. As a step to gain the knowledge, this paper clarify both of (1) state of utilization of closed high schools by a prefecture rather than municipalities and (2) specific issues of utilizing closed high schools unlike to elementary or junior high school due to facilities and catching area of schools.
The targets of this research are twenty-four closed high schools in Kanagawa prefecture. Kanagawa was chosen as a subject because the prefecture is a forefront prefecture of using closed prefectural high schools.
This paper analyzed use of closed high schools by the following three steps. First, the authors collected both transitions of policy regarding prefectural high schools and the number of closed public schools within the prefecture by bibliographic research and inquiries to municipalities. Second, the authors investigated use of twenty-four closed prefectural high schools and their surrounding communities by research in literatures which are school’s summary booklets of the prefectural archives, Density Inhabited District (DID) data by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, web site of local newspapers, and the proceedings of prefectural and municipalities’ assemblies. Finally, the authors interviewed with Kanagawa prefectural educational board and eight presidents of surrounding residents' associations to consider their opinions about the utilization of closed high schools.
The analysis revealed following main results.
(1) The integration of public high schools is determined by the prefecture with consideration to broader perspective on the prefecture. Therefore, local municipalities do not have opportunities to discuss with the prefecture about integration of high schools although they are most influenced by the school integration. The authors propose that it is important for local municipalities to participate the discussion.
(2) There are differences between high schools and both elementary and junior high schools, which are sizes of schools and local residents’ attachments toward schools. Local communities do not have particular attachment to closed high schools regardless distance from central urban area. However, as land prices are different depending on the locations, schools in rural area have fewer potentials to be used by private sectors. It leads to create an issue that closed high schools tends to be kept to be unused in rural areas. In the case that private sectors use the land, there are three ways of securing publicness of the lands; splitting lands into private and public sectors, making private sectors to develop public facilities and lending lands to private sectors. It is appreciated by local residents that enabling access for local communities to parts of new facilities developed by private sectors. Based on the results, the authors consider that it is important that prefecture keep publicness of closed prefectural high schools in using it.
