Schools must take seriously their responsibility to prevent bullying

ON TUESDAY, a 15-year-old female middle school student in Xianyou city, East China’s Fujian province, was stabbed to death by a male classmate. The local police said the suspect stabbed the victim in the neck. Thepaper.cn comments:

The local police said the suspect is under the age of 18, which sparked fierce discussion online because many people fear he might be given a too light penalty as he is still a minor.

There has already been much discussion about this incident and the legislature might need to consider improving the law on the protection of minors to make sure underage persons get their deserved punishment if a court finds them guilty of a crime.

Yet the incident in Fujian raises another question: How can schools prevent violence and bullying?

The school said the suspect stabbed the victim to death during a quarrel. Quarrels happen every day between middle school students, yet seldom do we hear of any involving the use of knives.

Indeed, even carrying a knife is prohibited in schools, so why was the boy able to have one on his person and use it.

In December 2016, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Public Security, together with nine other ministries co-issued a national plan on preventing campus violence.

According to the plan, the principal of a middle school or primary school or a kindergarten is responsible for preventing any violence.

The involved school should answer the question of how the suspect was able to carry a knife at school.

However, in its most recent announcement, the school did not answer any questions about the knife. That arouses worry about the involved school trying to hide the whole incident.

We hope that the local education authorities will investigate to find out if the school could have done more to prevent the tragedy.

Schools should never seek to hide bullying in the closet, and school managements should take the initiative to shoulder their responsibility to prevent any violent incidents.