Yesterday morning, I popped into the living room with sleepy eyes and called out to my wife, “Good morning!” without missing a beat, “Dad, look at this! The letter “Okijimae High School” was written in large letters on the head of the third page of the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Shimane Prefectural Okijimae High School is my alma mater. It’s my alma mater, after all.

In fact, the school was in danger of being closed. The number of students gradually decreases along with the population decrease of the island, and the number of students in one class of one grade has come to the place where the number of students is going to be less than 100 people, and the abolition of the school must stop. However, if this happens, all the children in the island will leave their parents for high school and live in a dormitory or an apartment to study at high school, and the population will decrease as the aging of the population progresses more and more.

The high school, which was in the midst of a crisis, has made an astonishing leap forward with the wisdom and efforts of the islanders, doubling the number of applicants this spring to 80 students in two classes.

For me, it was the best news of the year. Everyone in the country is trying to make it.

The following is an article from the Yomiuri Shimbun

Study abroad on the island with humanity and natural charm…Okijimae High School doubles its capacity
A high school in the Oki Islands in Shimane Prefecture has doubled the number of applicants for this spring to 80 students in two classes.

This is because more and more city kids are studying on remote islands in search of the humanity and rich nature of the islands. The island’s schools, which have seen a decline in enrollment due to depopulation and a decline in the number of children, and for a time were in danger of being consolidated, are coming back to life thanks to the cooperation of residents who become “island parents” and take care of the identity of students from outside the prefecture. According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the increase in capacity at the island’s high schools is unusual.
In the Oki Islands, many of the local junior high school graduates went on to high schools on the mainland, and the number of students enrolled in these schools decreased to 28 in 2008, nearly one-third of the 77 students enrolled in 1997.
In 2010, to make it easier for students from the mainland to enter the high school, the town began subsidizing the dormitory fees of the school’s 56-student dormitory, and opened a cram school run by the town, inviting teachers from Tokyo. The islanders became the underwriters of the students’ identities and began to watch over them as “island parents”.
The number of applicants from off-island increased after learning about these efforts through the Internet and other means. The number of students at the high school rose to 34 in the 2010 school year and to 40 in the 2011 school year, including 13 students from Osaka, Hyogo and Hiroshima. This spring, the number of applicants is expected to increase to two classes. Applications are accepted until February 3.
According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and others, public high schools in many remote islands are consolidating due to a decrease in the number of students. In 1998, in Hiroshima Prefecture’s Osaki Ueshima, Mie Technical High School and Osaki High School were merged into Osaki Kaisei High School. In 2007, in Yamaguchi Prefecture’s Suo Oshima (Suo Oshima Town), Anshimosho High School and Kuga High School merged to form Suo Oshima High School.
The Ministry’s Elementary and Secondary Education Bureau said, “It is unusual for the number of classes to increase on a remote island. He believes that the support of the entire community is making the school more attractive.

(January 30, 2012, Yomiuri Shimbun)