High school seniors go to school in Seoul on Aug. 10, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, April 3 (Korea Bizwire) — High school students prefer not to report cases of school violence in a higher proportion than elementary and middle school students, a government report showed Sunday.
A school violence analysis conducted by the Ministry of Education showed that the proportion of students who preferred not to report cases of school violence dropped from 19.1 percent in 2018 to 9.2 percent in 2022.
As for why they chose not to report school violence, most elementary and middle schoolers responded that “it wasn’t a big deal.”
In contrast, a majority of high school students believed that reporting school violence “wouldn’t help resolve the case” in 2018 (25.3 percent) and 2019 (30.9 percent).
In the years 2020 and 2021, high schoolers believed that ‘talking about it wouldn’t make a difference’ (35.2 percent and 29.7 percent respectively).
In a 2022 survey, 29 percent of high school students, too, said they didn’t report school violence because they thought ‘it wasn’t a big deal’, while 27.1 percent believed that “talking about it wouldn’t make a difference.”
Despite the increasing number of students falling victim to school violence and asking for help, high schoolers have very low expectations towards teachers, parents and friends that they would help address the issue.
“School violence is now governed by law, depriving victims and perpetrators of the opportunity to actively resolve the situation on their own. Instead, it’s beginning to involve parents,” an official at the Korean Federation of Teachers Unions said.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
