Monday, April 20, 2009

Auction of Japanese School

Japanese School Kids

It is reported that a small town in Japan is planning to auction off four primary schools on the Internet. Why? Because there is scarcity of student due to falling birthrate.

Niikappu, a farming and fishing town of 11,000 people on the northern island of Hokkaido, plans to start the auction next month on the Yahoo! Japan online auction site, said Hidenori Tsutsumi, who is in charge of the auction.

Last year, the small town closed seven of its nine schools. Thanks to falling birthrate! Three of those closed schools were turned into a corporate office, a nursing home and a horse-racing centre but the town was unable to find buyers for the others. With no immediate buyers for the other four, the town said it "decided to list the schools on Japan's largest auction site".

In rual areas of Japan, falling birthrate is a serious problem. In those areas older population has been left to till the lands while the younger population has moved to the cities.

Three of the four schools up for sale boast spacious teachers' residences and swimming pools. The asking prices range from 21.8 million to 67.4 million yen (220,500 to 682,000 dollars), the town said.

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