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

本研究旨在探讨学童人口减少对改善学校环境的启示。报告由三部分组成。第一部分对各城市的统计数据进行了分析，发现与学生数量的减少相比，全国范围内学校数量的减少幅度较小，这在东京学区尤为显着。学校的数量不仅在不断减少，而且在小城市出现了大规模的多校合一的现象。第二部分重点介绍了人口减少地区的7个直辖市。案例研究的主要发现如下：(1)学校一体化带来了学校设施等学校环境的密集改善；(2)校车服务等上学安全是学校一体化的必要条件；(3)将学校一体化理解为区域规划的一部分是重要的；(4)在人口减少地区引入择校制度促进了学校一体化。第三部分考察了各地州的高中计划，并解释了学校结构调整的趋势。

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.