Even amid the low birthrate and declining school enrollment nationwide, Fukushima Prefecture stood out in the drop in the number of elementary students last year, apparently triggered by the evacuation from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Even amid the low birthrate and declining school enrollment nationwide, Fukushima Prefecture stood out in the drop in the number of elementary students last year, apparently triggered by the evacuation from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The number of elementary students in Fukushima Prefecture, as of May 1 last year, was down 9,240 or 7.9 percent year on year, according to the final results of a basic school survey that were released Feb. 6 by the education ministry.
Most of the decrease is thought to be due to children who moved out of the prefecture for fear of radiation after the nuclear plant crisis following the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.
"Parents of younger kids probably had stronger desire to avoid the effects of radiation," an education ministry official said.
Nationwide, there were 6,887,292 elementary school pupils, down 106,084 or 1.5 percent year on year and the record low since comparable statistics became available in 1948.
In Fukushima Prefecture, there were 26,715 kindergartners, down 3,311 or 11 percent year on year. The rate of decrease was the largest since fiscal 1965.
The number of elementary students in the prefecture was 108,428. The year-on-year margin of decrease was comparable to that over the five years through fiscal 2010 (9,818).
The drop became less steep with increasing age. The number of junior high students decreased 4 percent, senior high students were down 3.7 percent, while university students incurred a minor drop of only 0.6 percent.
The number of schoolchildren also decreased in other prefectures that were heavily impacted by the March 11 quake. The number of elementary school pupils fell by 3,263 (2.5 percent) in Miyagi Prefecture and 1,894 (2.6 percent) in Iwate Prefecture.
The annual survey covers all kindergartens, elementary schools, junior and senior high schools, universities and other categories of schools, regardless of whether they are run by the national government, local governments or privately.
Data from Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate prefectures was lacking in the preliminary statistics released in August.
Children who retained their school enrollment registry in their original place of residence but were enrolled in a school where they were evacuated to were counted among their new place of enrollment in the latest statistics.
According to municipal education board officials in Fukushima Prefecture, the numbers of elementary and junior high school students in Minami-Soma, as of Jan. 10, were each about 40 percent more than the corresponding figures as of May 1, the reference date of the national survey. Parts of Minami-Soma have been designated a no-entry zone and a "planned evacuation zone" because of the nuclear accident.
A third category of zoning, or a "zone where residents are asked to prepare for evacuation in emergencies," was used to cover another segment of Minami-Soma. However, that designation was lifted on Sept. 30, which resulted in the reopening of eight elementary and junior high schools.
That may partly account for the steep rise in the number of schoolchildren in the city, the sources said.
In the meantime, the number of elementary and junior high students in Fukushima city, the prefecture capital, decreased 1,216 by the end of December from 24,504 in May. The corresponding number was also on the decline in Koriyama, sources said.
"Some children in Koriyama have evacuated to areas farther away from the nuclear plant, but others have moved in from areas closer to the nuclear plant," said a school board official in Koriyama. "Such complicated patterns of movement is making analysis difficult."