Guiding Local Governments to Strengthen Unsafe Schools in Japan

This case study explores how Japan developed guidelines for local governments to plan and implement assessment and retrofitting projects, and established a national subsidy programme for school assessments and retrofits, in order to strengthen all high school buildings in the country to resist earthquakes.

Between 2002 and 2016, the percentage of earthquake-resistant elementary and junior high school buildings in Japan increased from just 44.5% to 98%. The rapid increase was the result of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)’s Program for Earthquake-Resistant School Buildings. In 2003, MEXT published Guidelines for Promotion of Earthquake Resistance School Building for local governments. Using the technical and planning guidance from the MEXT guidelines, as well as national subsidies available for school retrofit projects, municipal governments across the country began implementing school retrofits and reconstructions in their jurisdictions. By 2015, approximately 52,000 elementary and junior high schools had been either assessed as seismically safe, retrofitted to be seismically safe, or torn down and reconstructed.