Wearing a mask, a school violence victim anonymously shares her experience during a press conference in Seoul in this file photo taken Sept. 12, 2023. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 14 (Korea Bizwire) – The proportion of elementary to high school students who said they have experienced school violence reached the highest level in 10 years this year, a survey showed Thursday.
The result was revealed in a school violence survey conducted by the education ministry for a month until May 10 on 3.17 million students from fourth year elementary to high school levels nationwide.
In the survey, 1.9 percent of the respondents said they suffered school violence between August last year and May, up 0.2 percentage point from the previous survey last year. The 2023 figure also marks the highest since the 2.2 percent recorded in 2013.
The proportion of victims was highest among elementary school students at 3.9 percent, followed by middle school students at 1.3 percent and high school respondents at 0.4 percent.
Of the school violence reported, verbal violence was the most frequent at 37.1 percent, followed by physical violence at 17.3 percent and mobbing at 15.1 percent.
A total of 48.3 percent of school violence perpetrators were reported to be from the same class as the victims and a majority of 68.8 percent of the reported violence took place inside the school, the survey also showed.
Nearly 8 percent of those who experienced school violence, however, did not report it to anyone mostly because they did not think it was a big deal.
The survey also showed that 1 percent of the total respondents reported having inflicted school violence, up 0.4 percentage point from last year and also the highest level since the 1.1 percent recorded in 2013.
The biggest portion, accounting for 34.8 percent, of the perpetrators said they did so “for fun or without any clear reasons.”
(Yonhap)
