Eight Schools, One Road: Consolidation on an Amakusa Island
Kawara-machi is a town of 6,200 people on an island in the Amakusa chain, Kumamoto Prefecture. In 2020, 2,540 residents (41.0%) were 65 or older and 480 were under 15. The town runs eight elementary schools; three have fewer than 40 pupils, and two lie more than 12 km by road from the town office. A consultancy proposes closing five schools and opening one central school, saving about ¥190 million a year, with school buses costing ¥55 million a year to run. In July 2020, 180 mm of rain fell in nine hours; 46 houses near the Hara River and the fishing port were flooded, and the prefecture now classifies that district as a landslide-hazard area. The town's general account is ¥9.8 billion, of which ¥1.6 billion already goes to debt repayment. At a public meeting, elderly residents said that if the buses were cut they could no longer reach hospital appointments.
1. Calculate the old-age dependency ratio and the share of under-15s from the figures given, and explain what each implies for the school-consolidation plan.
Read the worked answer
Working-age population = 6,200 − 2,540 − 480 = 3,180. Old-age dependency ratio = 2,540 ÷ 3,180 ≈ 79.9, i.e. about 80 residents aged 65+ per 100 aged 15–64. Under-15 share = 480 ÷ 6,200 = 7.7%.
Reasoning: 480 children spread over six year groups is roughly 80 per year, so eight schools average about 10 pupils per year group - below any viable class size. The plan's premise is sound: the cohort cannot fill eight schools, and no redistribution within the island changes that.
But the dependency ratio says who pays for the fix. With ~80 elderly per 100 working-age residents, grandparents, not parents, do much of the daily escorting, so bus frequency and journey time matter more than the headline saving. The figures support consolidation in principle; they do not support the specific design being proposed.
2. The consultancy claims a net saving of ¥135 million. Check the arithmetic and judge whether that figure should decide the plan.
Read the worked answer
¥190m − ¥55m = ¥135m, so the subtraction is correct. The judgement is what to do with it.
¥135m is 1.4% of the ¥9.8bn budget and only about 1.5 times the annual debt service of ¥1.6bn - real, but not transformative. A decision should instead compare cost per pupil before and after (¥190m across roughly 480 primary pupils is already about ¥0.4m per pupil) and count the costs the proposal omits: escorts on buses, longer journeys for 6–11 year olds, and the fact that the hazard district is served by a single road, so one closure in heavy rain cancels the central school for the whole town.
Defensible judgement: close the three schools with fewer than 40 pupils, keep two as satellites, and spend part of the saving on demand-responsive transport for the elderly rather than treating ¥135m as the test of the plan.
3. Where should new public housing be sited, and what data would you still need before committing?
Read the worked answer
Site it outside the district classified as a landslide hazard and outside the area inundated in July 2020 near the Hara River and the port - that is, on the higher inland terrace, within walking distance of a bus route and the clinic.
Reasoning: the hazard classification is based on an event that has already happened once; rebuilding in the same place converts a one-off disaster into a recurring liability against a ¥9.8bn budget. Transport matters because 41% of residents are 65+, so evacuation and access will be slow.
Data still needed: a hazard map with elevation contours and the landslide boundary; the number, tenure and household size of dwellings inside the hazard district; land prices and ownership on the terrace; bus route frequency and first/last times; and whether the prefectural disaster-recovery grant may be used only for rebuilding in place, which would change the cost comparison.