Japanese Schools of Few Students

choi

Anna Fifield, In Japan, schools so small they can't even form soccer teams resist the ax. Washington Post, Apr 20, 2015.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/asi ... 1b599ef9_story.html

Quote:

"The Education Ministry in ­Tokyo suggests two courses of action for these small schools. One is to integrate them with bigger ones, which the local district has ruled out for now. The second is to cooperate with nearby schools by holding joint lessons and by using technology.  The Aone school has only three joint classes with its closest neighboring school each year — though it’s just 20 minutes away — and decided IT connections were too complicated, even in high-tech Japan.

"In Hokkaido, some children are commuting 30 miles by bus every day because of school closures, while one tiny school in Nagano 長野県, in the alps, can’t close because the nearest alternative is a 90-minute drive away.

"But the central government faces a significant level of local resistance, and although it holds almost all the purse strings, it must defer to district authorities.

Note:
(a) Japanese English dictionary
* banchi 番地 【ばんち】 (n): "house number; address  <彼女はラッセルスクエア５６番地に住んでいた。 She lived at 56 Russell Square>"
* kakari-chō 係長 【かかりちょう】 (n): "chief clerk"
  ^ kakari 係(P); 係り 【かかり】 (n) (1): "charge; duty; person in charge; official; clerk"

(b) "Taiki KATŌ [kanji for the surname is 加藤], 11, [] said he was looking forward to going to middle school next year.  The middle school has eight students. The elementary school, where Kato started sixth grade this month, has six. And two of them, the only girls, are from the same family. That meant Yukari SUDŌ 須藤 ゆかり could easily master everyone’s names in her first week as principal of the elementary school in this small village, nestled in mountains 50 miles but a world away from the tightly packed metropolis of Tokyo."
(i) 相模原市立青根小学校  Aone Elementary School
www.sagamihara-aone-e.ed.jp/
(神奈川県相模原市緑区青根1331番地)
(ii) 相模原市立青根中学校
www.sagamihara-aone-j.ed.jp/

(c) "Aone, population 638, has two small general stores and a grimy restaurant that could make a claim for serving the worst food in Japan. The average age here is 62. * * * Kyoko INOUE 井上 恭子 [?], chief of educational affairs in Sagamihara, the municipality that incorporates Aone * * * Aone’s elementary school certainly has strong links to the community. It has been here for 142 years. * * * Even now, the whole building [which makes up the elementary school] — with its music room, complete with a grand piano, its science room stocked with lab equipment and its well-appointed library — is operational, although the rooms are heated only when they are used."
(i) Sagamihara  相模原市
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagamihara
(in Kanagawa Prefecture 神奈川県; is the third most populous city in the prefecture, after Yokohama 横浜 [市; capital] and Kawasaki 川崎 [市; No 2])
(ii) The city was named after the ancient Sagami Province 相模国 (which ja.wikipedia.org says was first written as 相摸), which had been roughly where Kanagawa Prefecture is.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagami_Province
(iii) 相模川 passes through the city and, not long after, empties into 相模湾

(d) "Hiroto IWAOKA, chief of compulsory education reform at the ministry"

岩岡 寛人（文部科学省初等中等教育局　教科書課企画係長）

(e) "The school manages to have sports days, even though there aren’t enough players to form a whole soccer team and the teachers have to be careful not to put too many kids in the cheering squad at once or there will be no one to spur on."
(i) spur (v): "[WITH OBJECT] to give an incentive or encouragement to (someone) <her sons' passion for computer games spurred her on to set up a software store>"
www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/spur
(ii) spur on
idioms.thefreedictionary.com/spur+on
(“See also: spur”)

The quotation means “spur” by itself (without “on”) is the same.

(f) "Masaaki HAYŌ 葉養 正明, a professor at Bunkyo University"

Bunkyō University  文教大学
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunkyo_University
(well known for its teacher training; Chartered 1966; private; administration in Tokyo, with two campuses in nearby prefectures)