Beijing , China ( CNN ) -- Early in the morning on March 23 , Zheng Minsheng walked in front of an elementary school in Fujian province . Wielding a knife , he attacked the students who happened to be around , killing eight and wounding several others . Authorities said Zheng , 42 , carried out the attack because he was frustrated at `` failures in his romantic life , '' according to the official Xinhua News Agency . Whatever his real motive was , the senseless killing , reported widely by the Chinese media , shocked the nation . Zheng was tried , sentenced to death and executed on April 28 . If Chinese authorities thought Zheng 's execution would deter similar attacks , they were wrong . The day he was executed , a knife-wielding man attacked elementary school students in southern Guangdong province , wounding 16 students and a teacher . The attacker was later subdued by the police , and no one died . The next day , a man in Jiangsu province barged into a kindergarten and stabbed 31 people , including 28 students , two teachers and one security guard . `` It was too horrible to imagine , '' one eyewitness told local reporters . `` I saw blood everywhere . '' Police apprehended the suspect , 47-year-old Xu Yuyuan . Then , on April 30 , a man barged into a village school in Shandong province , carrying a hammer and a can of gasoline . Wang Yonglai , a local farmer , attacked preschool students with the hammer , causing head injuries . He then set himself on fire and died . According to a Xinhua report , the local farmer went berserk after the local police told him that the family house he had just built using 110,000 yuan ( US $ 16,110 ) of family savings had to be torn down because it had been built on farmland , which is illegal in China . It was the third such school attack in three days . The spate of school attacks is prompting public anger . `` What is going on with these people ? '' Wen Jia , a father of a pre-schooler in Beijing , asked CNN . `` Why take their frustrations on defenseless children ? We need better security in schools , but we also need to take care of the mentally ill. '' On Friday , the Ministry of Education on its website issued an urgent circular ordering kindergartens , elementary and secondary schools to beef up security and restrict strangers from entering the campuses . The ministry instructed schools across the country to hire security guards , install security facilities and ensure that pupils are escorted home . Schools are also urged to teach pupils to how to protect themselves . Guns are strictly controlled in China , but until recently possession of large knives were not . Chinese authorities have recently issued a regulation requiring people to register with their national ID cards when they buy knives longer that 15 centimeters . Other measures are being put in place . In Jiangsu province , local police have helped schools set up `` campus security team '' composed of 70 security guards with batons and pepper spray . Police in Beijing have distributed `` forks '' , long poles with semi-circular prongs that security guards could use to fight assailants . In Changsha , capital of central Hunan province , parents formed vigilante teams to patrol local elementary schools . This series of school attacks are blamed on people with personal grievances or suffering from mental illness . Says Ding Xueliang , a sociology professor in Hong Kong : `` The Chinese society has generated enormous pressure on individuals and some of those individuals have perhaps had emotional and psychological problems . They want to cause general attention from the population and attacking kids perhaps is the best way from their perspective of achieving this objective . '' These recent incidents are covered extensively in the local media and on the Internet , prompting concerns over copycat violence . Says sociologist Ding Xueliang : `` With the mass media ( reports ) , particularly on the Internet , more individuals are likely to copy such practice , if the Chinese government does not do things quickly and effectively . '' For the terrified pupils and worried parents , the solutions are not coming quickly enough .
Recent spate of attacks at schools in China has increased public anger . China intensifies security at schools , issues new weapons purchase rules . Reports of attacks focused on people with grievances , mental illness .