[Editorial] Persistent School Violence: Prevention Capacity Comes First

Strengthening penalties and institutional measures alone has not reduced school violence. In 2012, amendments to the School Violence Prevention Act mandated that incidents of school violence be recorded in students' life records, and in 2014, the Act on Special Cases of Punishment for Child Abuse Crimes was enacted. Despite these changes, violence remains prevalent in schools. According to the first 2026 School Violence Survey, conducted by the Ministry of Education between April 14 and May 13 and announced on September 9, 2.9% of the 3.9 million elementary, middle, and high school students surveyed reported being victims. This is the highest figure since the survey began in 2013. Of the 91,600 students who reported experiencing violence, 56,500—or 62%—were elementary school students.

However, the actual number of school violence cases reported to local education offices decreased from 61,445 in the 2023 academic year to 56,880 in the 2025 academic year. This indicates a significant gap in how perpetrators and victims perceive school violence. Supporting this, the perpetrator response rate was only 0.8% this year, down 0.3 percentage points from the previous year. On the other hand, the proportion of cases reviewed by the School Violence Countermeasures Deliberation Committee increased from 47.6% in 2024 to 51.7% in 2025. During the same period, the proportion of cases concluded as "not school violence" also rose from 18.8% to 22.1%. This shows that minor conflicts are often escalated to committee reviews, reflecting a "judicialization" of schools due to a lack of educational solutions.

The types of harm experienced are also telling. Verbal abuse accounted for the largest proportion at 37.8%, followed by group bullying at 17.1% and physical violence at 15.7%. Factors such as growing up as the sole recipient of parental expectations and reduced face-to-face interaction and empathy due to increased use of digital devices may have contributed. While physical violence is apparent, there can be much greater differences in perception regarding verbal abuse or bullying. Content related to these issues should be included in curricula, and prevention education should be systematically structured.

The most important factor is the role of teachers who are closest to students in the field. Institutional support, such as providing professional personnel, must be established to enable teachers to manage student behavior and mediate conflicts without fear of malicious complaints. Rather than focusing on punishments that affect academic advancement and escalate into legal disputes, it is more urgent to strengthen the classroom’s capacity for prevention, such as relationship building and counseling.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.