About 700 elementary and junior high schools in Fukushima Prefecture held ceremonies Friday to kick off the new school year, but some have significantly fewer new students compared with last April.
About 34,450 students had entered elementary or junior high schools in the prefecture as of Friday, down 1,450 from the previous year, the prefecture's education board said. Many relocated with their families to other areas of Japan to avoid radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
In the village of Kawauchi, which resumed municipal governance in March, a joint entrance ceremony was held for a preschool, an elementary and a junior high school to welcome 16 new pupils.
Haruna Endo, 12, who entered Kawauchi Junior High School, made a pledge on behalf of the new students.
"We want to work hard together with those who returned to the village," she said.
For the first time in about a year, the elementary and junior high schools in the village resumed classes in their original buildings after being forced to relocate to temporary facilities in the city of Koriyama last year.
According to Kawauchi's board of education, only 30 students or so are attending schools in the village, a number that would have been around 170 if the nuclear disaster hadn't struck. The 140 students who evacuated will attend schools in their new municipalities, although most remained Kawauchi residents.
In the neighboring town of Naraha, three schools jointly resumed classes at a makeshift facility in the city of Iwaki for some 100 students, or 15 percent of the original enrollment. All attended schools outside Naraha last year.
Kotoha Etori, 6, who returned from Chiba Prefecture with her mother, was reunited with her old friends at Naraha North Elementary School for the first time in about a year.
"I want to play a lot (with them)," she said.
