2002 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

A Study on Improvement of Educational Environment on the Occasion of School Integration and School Choice System Introduction

Research Project

Project/Area Number	13610342
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Educaion
Research Institution	National Institute for Educational Policy Research
Principal Investigator	YASHIKI Kazuyoshi NIER, Policy and Evaluation in Education and Senior Researcher, 教育政策・評価研究部, 総括研究官 (70150026)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	SAKANO Shinji NIER, Policy and Evaluation in Education and Senior Researcher, 教育政策・評価研究部, 総括研究官 (30235163)
Project Period (FY)	2001 – 2002
Keywords	school integration / educational environment / decrease of school population / proper placement / reconstruction of school buildings / restructuring of senior high school
Research Abstract	This study aims at getting implications for the improvement of school environment in the school population decrease term. The report consists of 3 parts. Part I analyzes the statistics data by themunicipalities and it comes out that the decrease width of the number of schools is nationwide small in comparison with the decrease in numberor of students and that is especially remarkable in the Tokyo Wards. The number of schools doesn't only decrease continuously and the large-scale integrationto combine several schools into few schools together appears in small municipalities. Part II focuses on 7 municipalities located in the depopulation area. Main findings from the case studies are as follows ; (1) the school integration brings intensive improvement of school environment such as school facilities, (2) the security of going to school such as the service of a school bus is necessary as a condition of the school integration, (3) it is important to understand school integration as a part of the regional planning and (4) the introduction of the school choice system in the depopulation area promotes school integration. Part III examines the senior high school plans of each all prefectures and explains the trend of the school restructuring.