Society
Student leaps to death
By GAO CHANGXIN (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-17 07:43
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SHANGHAI: A 19-year-old senior high school student in Qingpu district jumped out of a classroom window on Monday, falling six stories to his death.
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The student, surnamed Xu, was in his third year at Qingpu first high school. He was declared dead upon arrival at hospital.
"We just had an exam and were resting in the classroom when suddenly a boy in the back row shouted someone had fallen out of the window," one of Xu's classmates, who refused to be identified, told eastday.com. "We then rushed to the window and saw Xu lying face up on the ground."
Wang Liang, an official with Qingpu education sub-bureau, said the incident is under investigation and declined to give any further details.
Providing some insight into the situation, the classmate said Xu had been in a bad mood prior to his death, which might have contributed to him taking his own life. "He was a good boy, open and smart, though he recently seemed to have some emotional problems and did not talk much."
Suicide has always been a problem for the city's secondary schools. In September last year, four students committed suicide in less than a week.
According to the Ministry of Education, a poll of 15,000 high school students in 13 provinces found that one in five said they had considered suicide at some point in their lives and 6.5 percent said they had actually come up with a plan to carry it out.
