Gunma Prefectural College of Health Sciences is based in Maebashi, the "City of Water, Greenery and Poets", 65 miles north west of Tokyo.
Founded in 1970 as Gunma Prefectural College of Welfare, it was the first Japanese school to offer a specialism in radiology and in 1972 it added nursing. These two disciplines have remained constant through the creation of the Gunma Medical Junior College in 1993, the closure of the College of Welfare in 1996, the creation of the current institution in 2005 and subsequent closure of the Junior College and the opening of a Graduate School in 2009.
In May 2019 it was accredited by the Japanese University Accreditation Association (JUAA).
It has also maintained a consistent enrolment of around 500 students, with a little more than two-thirds studying nursing, while offering a "next-generation-oriented curriculum" whose aim is to "foster nursing personnel and radiology technicians as health and medical care professionals who strive to provide medical practices that are grounded in scientific evidence based on advanced, systemised and specialist knowledge and techniques while preserving the human dignity of patients, as well as work to always achieve optimal health conditions".
It is a public institution in the prefecture and the first in Japan to introduce free medical care to the age of 15. In its role as a Regional Coordinating Centre, it works closely with Gunma’s specialist cancer, psychiatric medicine, cardiovascular and children’s hospitals as well as playing a significant public health education role.
