Students from struggling high school in Chiba Pref. accepted at Tokyo and Kyoto Univ.

This photo shows Awa High School in the city of Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture, March 25, 2026. (Mainichi/Yuta Hiratsuka)

TATEYAMA, Chiba — Students from a public high school that has been falling short of its enrollment quota in Japan passed the entrance exam to the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University this spring.

The school is Chiba Prefectural Awa High School located in the city of Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture, near the tip of the Boso Peninsula. The admission of its students to both prestigious universities marks the first such achievement for the school in 33 years, since the 1992 academic year.

Awa High School is known as the alma mater of Yoshiki of rock band X Japan. This year marks the 126th anniversary of its founding. Though it is a long-established school, in recent years it has frequently failed to fill its enrollment quota because of the area’s depopulation and the impact of the tuition-free program for private high schools.

Until around the year 2000, at least one student from the school passed the University of Tokyo entrance exam almost every year, but that ended after the 2007 academic year.

To revitalize the school, Awa High School launched a “Renaissance Project” and created a new special advanced class for students aiming for highly competitive national universities and other schools in the 2023 academic year.

Awa High School student Hyuga Shimabuku, who passed the admission exam to the University of Tokyo, is seen in this photo taken in the city of Tateyama, Chiba Prefecture, March 25, 2026. (Mainichi/Yuta Hiratsuka)

This spring, from the first group of that special class, 18-year-old Hyuga Shimabuku was accepted to the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Science Division II, and 18-year-old Hayato Takiguchi was accepted to Kyoto University’s Faculty of Agriculture. These are the school’s first admissions to the University of Tokyo in 18 years and to Kyoto University in 13 years. The number of students from the school accepted into national and public universities exceeded 30 for the first time in seven years.

There are no major cram schools in the area. Shimabuku improved his academic performance without attending cram school.

Awa High School Principal Takahide Hayakawa said, “Regional public high schools are in a difficult situation, but they have proven that children who remain in their communities can achieve results if they work hard. We want to continue nurturing the local children in Awa.”

(Japanese original by Yuta Hiratsuka, Chiba Bureau)