Gyeongnam School Violence Victims Total 3,979, with 'Verbal Abuse' Most Common

Provincial Office of Education Implements Customized Measures by Organizer and School Level

The Gyeongnam Office of Education announced that it will implement customized measures based on the first 2023 in-province school violence survey.

The Office of Education conducted an online survey targeting students from 4th grade in elementary school to 3rd grade in high school across the province for one month starting April 10.

The survey, commissioned by the Office of Education to the Korea Youth Policy Institute and Korea Research, involved 246,034 students from 1,002 schools in the province.

According to the survey results, the response rate of school violence victims in the province remained at 1.7%, the same as in 2022.

Among them, 3.5% of elementary school students, 1.1% of middle school students, and 0.3% of high school students reported experiencing school violence.

Response rates by type of school violence victimization. [Data provided by Gyeongnam Office of Education]

Among the 3,979 victim respondents, verbal violence accounted for the highest proportion at 37.0%, followed by physical violence at 17.0%, and group bullying at 15.0%.

Forced errands accounted for 8.1%, cyberbullying 6.4%, sexual violence 5.8%, excessive approach behavior (stalking) 5.6%, and extortion 5.2%.

Verbal violence decreased by 5.4% compared to last year, but physical violence increased by 3.0%, showing the highest rate in the past five years.

Response rates for locations and times of school violence victimization experiences. [Data provided by Gyeongnam Office of Education]

The locations where victims experienced violence were classrooms at 30.9%, hallways 18%, playgrounds and similar areas 10.3%, parks and similar areas 6.9%, and cyberspace 6%.

The times when victims experienced violence were recess at 33.7%, lunchtime 22%, after school hours 12.6%, class time 10.4%, and dismissal time 9.3%.

The most common people to whom victims reported or disclosed the school violence were school teachers at 36.6%, family members at 35.9%, and friends or senior/junior students at 14.4%.

Response rate of school violence perpetrators and reasons for perpetration. [Data provided by Gyeongnam Office of Education]

The response rate of school violence perpetrators was 1.0%, an increase of 0.3 percentage points from 0.7% in 2022.

Among them, 2.2% were elementary school students, 0.6% middle school students, and 0.1% high school students. Compared to last year, elementary school students increased by 0.57%, middle school students by 0.25%, and high school students by 0.07%.

Among perpetrator students, 35.7% responded that they committed school violence as a joke or without any particular reason, and 25.4% said they did so because the victim student bullied them first.

The Office of Education plans to implement customized measures by subject and school level through detailed analysis of the victim response results at the main office, education support offices, and individual schools.

To support relationship restoration and create peaceful schools, the annual training for about 1,000 school violence responsible teachers in all schools will be expanded by dividing into four regions.

Ten relationship restoration experts will be assigned to eight city education support offices, and 307 members of relationship restoration support teams will be expanded and operated in all 18 education support offices.

An early detection online system (App) for school violence will be introduced to support immediate response when signs or initial occurrences of school violence are detected.

Efforts will also include strengthening school violence prevention harmony programs linked to the curriculum and school violence prevention education week, holding participation-based annual events and lectures, operating participation and experience-centered prevention programs, conducting province-wide public relations activities, supporting cybercrime prevention education in cooperation with the provincial police agency, and supporting the operation of the expanded virtual world (metaverse) cyberspace for cyber violence prevention.

Since verbal and cyber violence have high proportions, measures will be taken to encourage proper language culture practices through a language habit self-diagnosis app and a student language culture improvement website.