Mizuho no Kuni Elementary School

Mizuho no Kuni Elementary School
Location
Toyonaka City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan
Coordinates	34°45′18″N 135°28′16″E
Information
Website	www.mizuhonokuni.ed.jp

Mizuho no Kuni Elementary School (瑞穂の國記念小學院, Mizuho no Kuni Kinenshougakuin) is a private elementary school to be opened in Toyonaka City, Osaka Prefecture. Its backing corporation has been described as "ultra-nationalist". Akie Abe was honorary principal but resigned after it was revealed that the school had bought land from the government at only 14% of its real value.

Overview

On October 31, 2014, Moritomo Gakuen, a school corporation, applied to the Osaka prefecture for the establishment of an elementary school. The request was accepted on on January 27, 2015.

Morimoto Gakuen's President, Yasunori Kagoike, serves as the Osaka branch leader of Nippon Kaigi, an ultra-conservative political lobby group that includes Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife in its membership as well as more than a dozen members of the Japanese Cabinet.

The school is about 8700 square meters, with a gymnasium and a 3-storeys building whose architecture was in meant to evocate the 1701 Shizutani School.

When raising funds for the school, Moritomo first called the school "Abe Shinzo memorial elementary school", but Shinzo Abe objected to the use of his name, so the school was named "Mizuho no Kuni" ("land of rice") instead.

The school song is Aa, seishun no mune no chi wa, theme of the 1964 movie with the same name.

Controversy

In February 2017 Japanese media revealed that the school had bought its land for 134 million yen, which is only 14% of what the land's estimated value. An adjacent piece of land of similar size was sold at the same time for 1423 million yen, also by the government.

Moritomo Gakuen

The school corporation, Moritomo Gakuen, bases its education on the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education.

Moritomo Gakuen has been operating a kindergarten called Tsukamoto Youchien since 1950, where children from three to five are required to sing Kimigayo every day. A sport event of the kindergarten had pupils with arms raised recitate a text calling Shinzo Abe to do his best, calling Japan to not "lose" to other countries in territorial disputes, denouncing Korea and China for giving a bad image to Japan, calling for lies not to be taught in schoolbooks, and celebrating the 2015 Japanese military legislation.