Chōsen gakkō (Japanese: 朝鮮学校 Chōsen gakkō; Korean: 조선학교) is school located in Japan that teaches Koreans in Japan by Chongryon. It is sponsored by North Korea and Chongryon.
Chōsen gakkō is the most popular foreign school for Koreans in Japan, although it is not acknowledged as a regular school. A Korean school sponsored by South Korea and operated by Mindan has fewer students but is so acknowledged.
As of 2013 there were 73 North Korean grade schools and ten North Korean high schools in Japan. As of 2014 there were about 150,000 pro-North Korea Zainichi Koreans in Japan, and they form the clientele of the North Korean schools. As of 2013 the North Korea-aligned schools had almost 9,000 ethnic Korean students.
There is also a North Korea-aligned university in Japan, Korea University.
The schools were established by Koreans who came to Japan to earn much more money during the pre-World War II period and during the war. Historically the North Korean government and the Chongryon provided funding for the North Korean schools in Japan. Justin McCurry of The Guardian stated that politically conservative Japanese people opposed the schools because since they believed that "a group that blatantly proclaims its loyalty to an unfriendly regime" should not receive the same treatment as the traditional Japanese education system.
The schools received increasing support in the 1950s and 1960s since many Koreans in Japan sided with the Chongryon; at the time North Korea appeared to have good economic prospects.
Beginning in 2010 and by 2014 increasing tensions between the Japanese and North Korean governments caused Japanese cities and prefectures to end subsidies to North Korean schools. In the fiscal year of 2011 the Osaka Prefectural Government ended subsidies to a North Korean educational corporation which operates ten schools.