2020 Volume 85 Issue 769 Pages 525-535
1. Introduction
After World War II, new junior high schools were established in many municipalities by the reform of the school education system. Later, at the time of implementing the municipal merger of Showa, many of these new junior high schools were consolidated.
2. Purpose
This paper addresses the reorganization process of public junior high schools in the Okayama Prefecture. This paper considers the effects of municipal merger on the integration and abolition of Junior high schools up to 2010. This paper aims to clarify the relationship between the policy municipal merger and the consolidation of Junior high schools in Showa and Heisei.
3. Conclusion
1) After World War II, there were small municipalities that less than the national average population in the Okayama Prefecture. Therefore, it was difficult to establish the new junior high school by each municipality based on the policy of the government. So, the Okayama Prefecture encouraged school unions with a couple of municipalities in order to maintain ideal school size. As a result, the number of junior high schools operated by the school union accounts for approximately 30% of the total number of junior high schools in 1950. In addition, the number of municipalities belonging to the school union accounts for as much as 60% of the total number of municipalities.
2) The Okayama Prefecture stipulated the merger plan to reduce the number of small municipalities. Thereby, the mergers exceeding the number of prefectural merge plan were implemented until 1961. But, the number of municipalities decreased by municipal mergers had been still short of the prefectural reducing goal. However, in the majority of merged municipalities, merged districts included the municipalities as affiliated school unions.
3) The transition of the number of students was classified by its features into 5 periods: before 1962 when the increase and decrease had been remarkable based on the war-damage recovery process and baby boom, from 1963 to 1980 during which time the number of students had rapidly decreased by the population movement in high economic growth period and fertility decline, from 1981 to 1986 during which time the number of students had increased by the second baby boom, from 1987 to 2002 during which time the number of students declined continuously during a period and after 2002, the number of small scale junior high schools has been increasing in the most of municipalities . The features of the school consolidations differed depending upon the time period.
In Okayama Prefecture, the administrative reactions of every local government to the new school educational system after World War IIand municipal merger in the Showa and Heisei periods has greatly influenced on the junior high school management up to the present time.
