Bullying Drastically Increases

In its comprehensive survey all over Japan, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, or MEXT, realized 320 thousands of bullying cases in elementary, mid or high schools. While the number of cases significantly increased from last year, it is still unclear whether each school has dug out all the bullying cases in the classroom, gymnastic or cyber space. It showed a certain limitation for the government to get into the detail of human relations in school.

The whole number of bullying in schools from April 2016 to March 2017 amounted to the highest record of 323,808, adding 43.8% on previous year. Serious cases among them, including committing suicide or non-attendance, rose up to 400, having increased by 27.4%. MEXT recognized it as a result in which trivial cases were intensively included by school teachers.

More bully cases were found in elementary schools. There were 237,921 cases reported from the elementary school all over Japan, adding 58.8% to the previous year. The number also increased in mid-schools and high schools. 62.5% of all cases were ridiculing, mockery or slander. Those are the phenomenon often seen in ordinary human relationship in any society. One serious situation in Japan is some children accept them as unbearable uneasiness for their life. It is Japanese society that is denied.

How are the kids involved in bullying? 62.5% of the cases were deriding or slandering. Violence of hitting or kicking pretending to be a playing each other occupied 21.6%, followed by 15.3% of isolating or ignorance or 3.3% of slandering in social networking service. But it is fundamentally hard for the teachers to grasp all the negative impacts of human relations in schools.

It is unclear whether the survey reflects every aspect of bullying in schools. The number of bullying cases per student in Aomori prefecture rose up to 38.8, 4.4 times greater than the previous year. After a female student killed herself last summer caused by continuous bullying, the local government of Aomori became serious about finding all the bullying. One teacher in Tokyo was told by his superior that Board of Education would come by to investigate the school, if the number of bullying cases in the report had been too small. The teachers are as serious in finding bullying cases as giving lecture.

It is important not to ignore even a trivial sign of being bullied. However, MEXT is dealing with the problem by issuing orders in a top-down manner. Issuing orders of additional assignment to the teachers may cause another kind of bullying in the bureaucratic hierarchy in Japan. It is also important for the government to take bottom-up measures to encourage students who are in trouble with friends.