A college of technology on the Kawasaki Sogo Kagaku High School site in Saiwai: Kawasaki aims to open it in FY2030 at the earliest

A kosen on the Kawasaki Sogo Kagaku High School site

Kawasaki City Board of Education is working toward using the grounds and buildings of the city-run Kawasaki Sogo Kagaku High School in Komukai Nakanocho, Saiwai Ward, as the main campus of a new college of technology (kosen). It reported on the progress at a board meeting on Aug 18, 2026.

A kosen is a school where students enter at 15, after junior high school, and spend five years learning technology mainly through experiments and hands-on practice. There are 58 in Japan, but none yet in Kanagawa Prefecture.

According to the city's document, the goal is to open in FY2030 at the earliest. For the first year after opening, the kosen and Kawasaki Sogo Kagaku High School are expected to share the site.

Run together with companies and universities

The city aims for a kosen run together with companies and universities. The idea is that the city and several companies will put up money to create a new school corporation, with companies sending researchers and universities sending teachers. The city will support the whole effort by sending staff and helping pay the costs of setting up and running the school.

Examples of fields listed in the document are software engineering, electronics, semiconductors, cryptography, quantum information science and bioinformatics (using computers to study biological data).

The departments, number of students, number of staff and the city's share of the costs are still to be decided.

Steps until opening

Sogo Kagaku stops full-time admissions from FY2029

It matters most to junior high school students in Saiwai and elsewhere who will take high school entrance exams, and to their families.

Under the city's plan, Kawasaki Sogo Kagaku High School will stop recruiting part-time students from FY2028 and full-time students from FY2029. That means the last full-time students will enter in April 2028, and the last part-time students in April 2027.

If the kosen opens on schedule in FY2030, the first students will be those finishing junior high school in March 2030. In FY2026, they are in the sixth grade of elementary school.

Saiwai High to become credit-based part-time and correspondence

At the same meeting, the board also reported a plan to review all five city-run high schools. Saiwai High School, the other city high school in Saiwai Ward, will also change.

• Saiwai High School (Saiwai Ward): The plan is to make it a credit-based school with a part-time course offering morning, afternoon and evening sessions, plus a correspondence course. The last first-year students of the Business and Culture course are expected to enter in FY2028.
• Kawasaki High School (Kawasaki Ward): The plan is to make it a combined junior and senior high school with only a general course, and to stop recruiting for the welfare and life science courses.
• Tachibana High School (Nakahara Ward): The plan is to create a new general course and widen what students can study in the sports course.
• Takatsu High School (Takatsu Ward): The plan is to rebuild the school and make it a combined junior and senior high school using the International Baccalaureate (an international education program that can lead to universities abroad).

The part-time courses at Kawasaki, Tachibana and Takatsu are to be brought together at Saiwai High School. The city gives as reasons that the number of junior high graduates is expected to fall by about 20% by 2040, and that specialized and part-time courses have kept falling short of their capacity.

Nothing to do now

No. The city plans to finalize a new plan for its high schools by the end of FY2026. The August documents do not give dates for publishing a draft or for hearing residents' opinions. We will add them to this article when they are announced.

It has been reported that the city included ¥23.1 million for preparation costs in its September supplementary budget.

Contacts

The documents were prepared by the School Education Department of the Kawasaki City Board of Education Secretariat. The Board of Education's main phone number is 044-200-3261 (weekdays, 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.). You can also call "Thank You Call Kawasaki," the city's general information line (044-200-3939, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., every day).