-Caveat Lector- http://cnn.com/1999/ASIANOW/east/12/01/japan.kindergarten.ap/index.html Kindergarten killing: Tale of pressure and jealousy grips Japan December 2, 1999 Web posted at: 12:47 p.m. HKT (0447 GMT) TOKYO (AP) -- The Japanese way of education often means unrelenting pressure on families, biting competition between children and fiery jealousy among parents. But could it also mean murder? The Japanese have been asking that question since a housewife was arrested last week in the slaying of a 2-year-old girl -- and the media linked the crime to entrance exams for elite kindergartens. Details remain fuzzy, and reports emerged Tuesday that the 35-year-old suspect, who turned herself into police, has denied she acted out of jealousy over the child's academic success. But whatever the motive, the crime has ignited a wide-ranging debate over Japan's cut-throat education practices. The story has been splashed across newspapers and TV talk shows for days. The government has promised to consider education reforms. Critics are using it as fodder for tirades against schools and society. "People have this illusion that if you go to a good school, a happy life is waiting for you," said Gentaro Kawakami, a sociologist and education specialist. "In Japan these days we are raising children as if we were training animals." At the center of the case is Mitsuko Yamada, who is accused of taking Haruna Wakayama from a nursery school playground in central Tokyo and strangling her with a scarf in a public bathroom. She then allegedly buried the child's body at her parents' house, 110 miles away. Police will only say that Yamada, who was taken into custody Nov. 25, had "clashes" with the victim's mother. Both women had two children the same ages, 2 and 5. Japanese media, meanwhile, have been rife with accounts from neighbors and police that Haruna had recently passed an entrance exam at an elite kindergarten, while Yamada's daughter failed an initial random drawing to apply -- and that Yamada could not control her jealousy. For many Japanese, it isn't hard to imagine the brutal pressure of the education system driving someone to murder. Competitive entrance exams have long been the key to academic and social success in Japan. In recent decades, the race has become so intense that parents are pushing even infants to take the tests. The hope for such families is a spot in an elite kindergarten like the one Haruna had won. Passing such an exam, which tests manners and knowledge of things like colors, guarantees eventual entry to the schools' affiliated, prestigious universities. The pressure can be especially crushing in Japan, where a premium on conformity makes keeping up with the Joneses almost an obsession, particularly in districts of Tokyo where top schools _ and hopeful parents -- are clustered. "The overheating of competition among very young children is a real problem," Education Minister Hirofumi Nakasone said Tuesday. "The ministry has been studying this ... and we will take the appropriate steps." The crime has also thrown a critical spotlight on the lives of urban housewives, many of whom are cut off from extended families and left by work-obsessed husbands to raise children on their own. With almost no life outside their homes, these women -- called "education mamas" -- measure their own self-worth by the academic achievements of their children, critics say. "Some mothers of the younger generation live in a very closed world," said Kawakami. "They have really limited relations with others, and you don't get a sense they are really living their lives." The killing, following other sensational crimes like a teen-ager's beheading of an 11-year-old two years ago, has also bolstered claims that the materialism and alienation of wealthy Japan have eclipsed the country's traditional values. "Are ... people's minds malfunctioning?" the Asahi newspaper asked in an editorial Saturday. "Or are the good qualities in our society, like tolerance and modesty, wearing down?" Of course, not all Japanese are obsessed with entrance exams. Yoshiko Kato, 41, mother of two in a working-class district of Tokyo, said it was "stupid" for families to spend so much time and money to get their toddlers into high-class schools. But she could see how the pressure could get to someone. "If I was in that group, maybe I could share those feelings," she said, playing with her 4-year-old in a park. "But killing someone is just not normal." 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