Three years after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear crisis, more than 11,000 students from Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures are still attending schools in other prefectures.
Three years after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear crisis, more than 11,000 students from Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures are still attending schools in other prefectures.
According to the education ministry, there were 11,452 such transfer students as of May 1.
The ministry announced the results of its survey on Aug. 26.
Compared to a year earlier, the number of kindergarten, elementary, junior high and high school students transferred from those prefectures dropped by 1,351. Children who have returned to their homes as well as those who became irrelevant to the survey for reasons such as graduation from high school account for the decreased number.
“(The figures show that some students) returned to their homes, but the impact (of the disasters) still remains,” said an official with the ministry.
By prefecture, Fukushima Prefecture, which hosts the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, had the largest exodus of students, at 9,767, a drop of 1,219 students from the previous year. In Miyagi Prefecture, the number of students who have already changed to a school outside the prefecture decreased by 74 to 1,400 students. The figure in Iwate Prefecture dropped by 58 to 285 students.
Regarding the prefectures to which the students have moved, Yamagata Prefecture had the largest number of incoming students from outside the prefecture, at 1,272. In Niigata Prefecture, the number of students who have already moved to the prefecture was 1,157. The number of such students in Saitama was 889.