Tatsuma Hangai will be entering his third year at Namie High School in April, but he has never taken a class at the home campus in Fukushima Prefecture.
The 17-year-old is one of more than 1,000 students at eight high schools in the prefecture who evacuated because of the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant that started in March 2011. They go to school at 11 satellite campuses set up away from their radiation-tainted hometowns.
Given the 40-year timeline for decommissioning the plant, the schools face an uncertain future amid a sharp drop in enrollment.