A special government panel will urge the government to do more to prevent students who were relocated after the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis from being bullied at school, in the first planned review of its basic policy on the issue.
The move, decided on Tuesday, follows a series of revelations about the bullying of evacuees from nuclear crisis-hit Fukushima Prefecture, including a first-year student at a junior high school in Yokohama who had the word "germ" added to his name.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is seeking to raise awareness about bullying in schools and communities by highlighting cases linked to the disaster that hit the Tohoku region on March 11, 2011, ministry officials said.