Roundup: Bullying in Japanese school hits record high amid rising student suicides

Incidents of bullying in Japanese elementary schools hit a record high in the 2014 to 2015 school year, a government survey showed Tuesday.

Cases in junior and high schools have been charting a significant uptick despite the state's efforts to combat the growing social problem against a backdrop of rising student suicides.

The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry said in a report that cases of bullying reported by elementary schools in the recording period had jumped by 3,973 cases to 122,721.

Cases reported from elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools and senior high schools collectively, also jumped for the year to March by 2,254 reported cases, to 188,057 cases, the ministry said, with the data also showing that in comparison to figures taken in the 2010-2011 school year, cases increased by 5.8 times for those in the first grade, while those in the second grade saw incidents jump by 4.3 times.

Compared to a year earlier, the ministry said along with cases in elementary schools being up by 3,973 from the previous year, those for junior high schools were down by 2,279 at 52,969 cases.

Bullying cases reported at senior high schools, meanwhile, were up by 365 at 11,404 incidents, the data showed.

According to the ministry, the increase could be explained by schools taking a more proactive stance against bullying in school time, with even smaller cases, of late, being officially recorded. Worryingly, however, the latest figures have revealed a distinct uptrend in the number of cases involving the youngest members of elementary schools.

The survey found that the most common form of bullying in schools in Japan comes in the form of mocking and character assignation, followed by the latter but via computers or phones, although the government has recognized that its ability to collect precise data online or "cyber bullying" as it has become known, is impeded by phone applications, due to legal and privacy issues.

The Line application, introduced to Japan in 2011, is hugely popular with youngsters here as a convenient way to send and receive free instant messages and make calls on electronic devices such as smartphones, tablet computers and personal computers.

But its popularity has also led to an increase in cyber bullying as users can sign up for multiple accounts and share group chats.

The application has also come under fire for its lack of protection of underage users, particularly female, from nefarious organizations looking to exploit them, as well as in-line applications that have hidden charges and are linked to the user's credit card.

In terms of nationwide bullying, the ministry said in all of Japan's 47 prefectures the number of bullying cases per 1,000 students had increased in 34 of the prefectures, although noted that violent cases, either physical or psychological, had dropped by 23, to 156 cases compared to the previous school year.

Special panels in schools have been set up as per a new law at 99.9 percent of all schools in Japan, but officials at the ministry have warned that the panels themselves need to be carefully monitored, particularly in light of a high-profile bullying case that ended in a junior high school student killing himself in July this year.

Ryo Muramatsu, 13, a second-year student at a junior high school in the town of Yahaba, Iwate Prefecture, fatally threw himself in front of a train, despite a plethora of pleas for help from his homeroom teacher to intervene in the turmoil he was suffering on a regular basis at the hands of bullies in his school.

For more than a year he had documented the incidents of bullying in a diary and exchanged them with his homeroom teacher who failed to take concrete action in a tragedy described by the school's principle as "preventable."

Despite entries in the young boy's diary stating that "the violence is continuing" and "I cannot stand it any more."

The teacher failed to take action, and a survey conducted by the school on bullying also failed to detect the problem.

On June 29, Ryo wrote his last haunting entry, which read, "The place for me to die has already been chosen."

Yet his homeroom teacher still failed to take action. On July 5, he was quoted as writing, "This is my last post." Five hours later, he jumped to his death in front of a speeding train.

Japan's overall suicide rate is about 60 percent higher than the world average, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization, with the National Police Agency here also reporting that the number of student suicides is on the increase.

According to Kenzo Denda, a professor at Hokkaido University, one in 12 elementary school children in Japan suffers from depression, with the rate jumping to one in four among junior high school students.

These instances of depression have been causally linked to in-school bullying, with psychologists and psychiatrists the world over in agreement that depression itself is the leading cause of suicide, now, it would appear, irrespective of age. Enditem