Seven closed schools named in Korea's first reuse contest

The interior ministry said Monday that seven projects reusing closed schools had been selected in the first joint competition it ran with the education ministry, as the number of schools shutting each year climbs sharply.

The 2026 contest drew 62 submissions, which passed through a written review and a presentation round on Oct. 28. Ten shortlisted cases went to an online public vote, and officials attending the presentation round voted directly. Entries were scored on effort, originality, cooperation, effectiveness and the potential to spread elsewhere.

The top prize, the prime minister's award, went to an education support office in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, for a publicly run cat shelter and adoption center. The center occupies the Hansan Elementary School Yongho branch, which closed in 2012 and was renovated in 2023, on a site of about 3,000 square meters with 446 square meters of floor space.

Since opening, the center has taken in 173 cats and found homes for 72, drawing about 450 visitors a month and 11,813 in total. It has also hosted a Tongyeong Cat Island Day in 2025 and 2026.

The prime minister's award comes with 100 million won ($74,516), while each of the six minister's awards carries 40 million won ($29,806) from special grants. The interior minister's awards went to an astronomy science center in Ganghwa, Incheon; a bee-themed park in Goesan, North Chungcheong Province; and a visitor site in Danyang in the same province. The education minister's awards went to a combined education and culture space at Gongjin Elementary and Middle Schools in Seoul, an ecology site in Imsil, North Jeolla Province, and a project in Buan in the same province.

The number of schools closing has risen each year, from 26 in 2023 to 33 in 2024 and 53 in 2025.

"A closed school is not simply an idle space but a valuable asset that can become a new growth engine for a region," Vice Interior Minister Kim Min-jae said. He said he hoped the best cases would spread across the country and help communities cope with the risk of disappearing.

Vice Education Minister Choi Eun-ok said the point was not only to fill the empty space of a closed school but to reconnect it with functions the community needs. She said the contest should spread local ideas so that closed schools become assets that create new possibilities rather than burdens.

The government plans to publish a casebook and hold a results-sharing meeting to spread the selected models nationwide, and to support local governments and provincial education offices in drawing up their own plans suited to each site's location, characteristics and residents' needs.