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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46096626
In the fiscal year 2016/7 up to March, 250 children from elementary to high school age were recorded as having taken their own lives. The number is five more than last year, and the highest it has been since 1986.
Concerns the children had reported included family problems, worrying about their futures and bullying. But schools said the reasons behind about 140 of the deaths are unknown as the students did not leave a note. Most of those who took their lives were of high school age, where Japanese students typically study until they are aged 18.
[...] Overall suicides across Japan fell to about 21,000 in 2017, police say, down from a peak of about 34,500 in 2003.
[...] "The number of suicides of students have stayed high, and that is an alarming issue which should be tackled," education ministry official Noriaki Kitazaki said as the latest figures were released.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 07 2018, @10:41PM
It depends on which of those outcomes is that which the parents and the child's teacher did not expect. If they wanted the boy to become a doctor, and he only tested into a commercial high school, then it's a lot different than the kid whose parents are fine with that.
There are other layers of course. I had a student in the academic high school where I taught and she was one of the top three in the school across the board. She really wanted to become a doctor, but her parents were traditional and thought it was improper for a girl to have that career. The most they would allow her to go for was a pharmacist. I saw her some years later when I was passing through Tokyo on the way to China; she was in her second year of pharmacy training and the bright eyed, energetic high school star I had known was stooped and dulled. The light had already gone out of her, and it broke my heart.
Against all that the suicide rate for Japanese youth makes perfect sense to me. I am only surprised it's not much higher, or, heck, that Japanese youth don't vote with their feet and decamp for Europe and the US en masse.
Washington DC delenda est.