Ah, I’ve tried to find this one before I believe but ran out of time. Bit unfortunate that it’s as beaten up as it seems. I was hoping there’d be some interesting or at least amusing documents left behind. Thankyou for sharing these photos.

The background of these schools is rather interesting. Basically, whilst nowadays its abundantly clear which Korea has the economic and social… ahem… edge, back in the initial years after the war the North raced ahead in it’s recovery. As such, it was the one that first sprung to the aid of non-naturalised former Korean nationals residing in Japan, which earnt it a lot of loyalty. As such, of the two Korean societies, the pro-North faction (Chongryon) originally had more members. Nowadays, the pro-South faction (Mindan) has more than twice as many members.

The reason you find these abandoned schools is that ultimately funding dried up. At first, the North cut funding, and then later as the monetary burden was shifted onto local government and community, that funding started to evaporate under the pressure.

There’s of course a lot more to them than this brief overview, but if you’re going to explore more of these, it may be worth having a read up on them. I feel understanding the context of a site can add a lot to urbexing.