Japan town auctions schools

TOKYO – A SMALL Japanese town with a falling birthrate plans to auction
off four primary schools on the Internet, a local official said on
Thursday.

Niikappu, 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.

The farming and fishing town of 11,000 people last year closed seven of its nine schools.

Three 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.

‘It became necessary to consolidate the schools due to the falling birthrate,’ a municipal statement said.

With no immediate buyers for the other four, the town said it
‘decided to list the schools on Japan’s largest auction site’.

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 (S$330,213 to S$1.02 million), the town
said.

No local population statistics were immediately available. But
Japan has been struggling with a falling birthrate, which is especially
acute in rural areas where the older population has been left to till
the lands while the younger population has moved to the cities. — AFP

Popularity: 2% [?]