A recent report by a third-party body of the Nagoya Board of Education linked the suicide last November of a junior high school boy to bullying and faulted school officials for their handling of the situation surrounding the victim. The case underlines the need to improve systems at schools and in communities to prevent suicides by youths, along with the question of how to beef up steps against bullying in schools. The 12-year-old boy, who killed himself by jumping in front of a subway train, left a suicide note stating that he could not stand being bullied any longer.
The board of education's probe found that the boy not only faced verbal and other forms of bullying by his classmates but also felt strong stress over the atmosphere in his class and the attitude of members of his table tennis club. His homeroom teacher and the teacher in charge of the club did not take other students' behavior toward the boy seriously and failed to take effective action to deal with his situation.
The probe also highlighted the fact that school authorities failed to respond properly to the results of the boy's psychological test and that their system to grasp and make judgments on the situations of each of their students did not function properly.