TOKYO: Cases of violence by Japanese school students hit a record high in the past year, with elementary students increasingly violent, the education ministry said.

The number of cases jumped 18 per cent to nearly 53,000, which some experts have linked to increasing stress among children pushed to excel in their studies and also join a raft of extracurricular activities.

“We heard from school boards that children cannot control their emotions and there is a decline in their moral values as well as the lack of their ability to communicate well,” an education ministry official said.

The number of cases involving elementary school children, both at school and elsewhere, jumped 37 per cent to 5,214 incidents in the year to March 2008.

However, there were fewer cases of bullying by students, which the ministry counts separately, although it added that the 101,000 cases found at Japan’s 40,000 schools was still high.—Reuters