Japan Principal, student commit suicide
Pastor Dale Morgan
Japan Principal, student commit suicide*
From correspondents in Tokyo
November 13, 2006 02:19am
Article from: Reuters
A JAPANESE primary school principal was found hanged in a forest in an
apparent suicide, and a junior high school girl jumped to her death the
same day, Kyodo news agency said.
The principal was the second to take his own life in as many weeks,
while Japan's education ministry last week received seven letters
apparently written by students threatening suicide in response to
harassment by bullying classmates.
A series of suicides by students in recent weeks caused by bullying has
seized public attention at a time when debate is heating up on education
reform, a key plank in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's conservative policy
agenda.
The principal, Kenji Nagata, 56, had been criticised after an incident
in which a 10-year-old girl was extorted out of ¥100,000 ($1108) by
eight schoolmates. He had reported the matter to the board of education
in Kitakyushu, southern Japan, as “financial trouble” rather than bullying.
The 12-year-old girl, who leaped from the eighth floor of a public
housing building, was a student in Tondabayashi near Osaka in west
Japan. She left a suicide note that did not refer to bullying, but some
classmates said she had been teased about her body shape when she was in
primary school, Kyodo quoted the police as saying.
In late October a high school principal in Ibaraki, north of Tokyo,
hanged himself in woods near his home after his school was found to be
one of hundreds that skipped required courses so students could focus on
competitive university entrance exams.