EDUCATION

A male Canadian national employed at a day care facility in Kitakyushu City who was caught abusing a child on video has had his contract canceled by the facility, reports Fuji News Network (May 21). (tokyoreporter.com)

Sony Corp. will tackle game addiction, its chief executive said Wednesday as the World Health Organization prepares to formally recognize it as a disorder.
(Japan Times)

This year’s pass ratio of female applicants for admission to the scandal-tainted Tokyo Medical University, which had discriminated against women for more than a decade, was slightly higher than that of male applicants, figures released by the university have shown. (Japan Times)

In recent years, we’ve heard a number of disturbing accounts involving teachers hitting students at Japanese schools, and this week, another disturbing case came to light, when a foreign English-language instructor was seen slapping a two-year-old child during a class at a child daycare facility. (Japan Today)

The Japanese school year starts in April, and one high school in Tochigi Prefecture wasted no time in scheduling a two-night class trip for its new crop of first-year students. (soranews24.com)

The government said Thursday it plans to reduce the number of dementia patients in their 70s by 10 percent over the next decade, setting the first such numerical goal to curb growing welfare spending at a time when the Japanese population is rapidly aging. (Japan Today)

Japan enacted legislation Friday making preschool education free as part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s drive to expand child care support and stem the country’s falling birthrate. (Japan Today)

A 15-year-old junior high school girl killed herself last week after leaving a note accusing a male coach at her table tennis club of verbal abuse, a local education board said Monday. (Japan Times)

May 5 is Children’s Day in Japan. But the number of children in the country has declined for 38 straight years since 1982, and is now at an all-time-low.
(NHK)

A 56-year-old man has admitted to leaving knives on the desk of Prince Hisahito at a junior high school in Tokyo, investigative sources said Tuesday. (Japan Today)