Japan seems to be getting serious about galvanizing esports talents at the earliest possible age. In fact, Japan will have a special high school for esports first in its country.
The school, named Esports Koutou Gakuin or Esports High School, will open its doors to new students in April. The school will be located in the trendy area of Shibuya in Tokyo.
From the renders shown on Koutou Gakuin's official Esports website, the classroom design doesn't look like a conventional school. The room has a futuristic industrial concept with many tables filled with sophisticated gaming computers.
The gaming facilities provided by this school are 40 Galleria XA7C-R37 gaming PCs powered by Intel Core i7-11700 and Nvidia GeForce RTX3070 graphics cards.
Esports Koutou Gakuin, Japan's first esports high school will open. Photo: Doc. Esports Koutou Gakuin
Koutou Gakuin's esports website does not explain what games students will learn at this school. They only say that the game genres that can be played include FPS, third person shooter, RTS, and MOBA.
The school is supported by the esports team from Japanese telecommunications giant NTT Docomo, and the esports team owned by the Japanese professional football team, Tokyo Verdy. Later, students will be trained directly by esports athletes and people from the industry.
Despite championing esports as its main subject, students at this school will also study subjects according to the standard high school curriculum in Japan. In addition, there will be individual study programs for students who have difficulty with standard instruction, as quoted from Kotaku, Sunday (12/26/2021).
Esports Koutou Gakuin said students who graduated from his school could not only become professional esports athletes or streamers. They can also be VR creators, game writers, 3DCG designers, game designers, special effects creators, and programmers.
The school will hold an open house in January to welcome interested prospective students. It is not yet known how much it will cost to enter this esports school.
