1.7% of Gyeongnam Students Experience School Violence... Verbal Abuse Accounts for 42.2%, the Highest

Gyeongnam Office of Education Announces Results of 2022 First School Violence Survey

Response rate of school violence survey.
[Image source=Gyeongnam Office of Education]

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Seryeong] The Gyeongnam Office of Education revealed that 1.7% of students in the province experienced school violence in the first nationwide school violence survey of 2022, conducted jointly with 16 city and provincial education offices across the country.

The survey, commissioned by the provincial education office to the Korea Educational Development Institute, was conducted online and via mobile from April 11 to May 8.

A total of 231,166 students from 4th grade elementary school to 3rd grade high school in 988 schools across the province participated, showing a participation rate of 82.7%.

According to the survey results, the victim response rate increased by 0.6 percentage points compared to 1.1% in the 2021 survey, returning to a level similar to that of 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Response rate of damage by school level. [Image source=Gyeongnam Office of Education]

By school level, the rates were 3.8% for elementary school, 0.9% for middle school, and 0.2% for high school, showing increases of 1.2 percentage points and 0.4 percentage points for elementary and middle schools respectively compared to the first survey in 2021.

An education office official analyzed that the rise in victim response rates among elementary and middle school students compared to last year reflects increased physical and verbal interactions due to the normalization of school classes and heightened sensitivity to school violence among elementary students.

Types of School Violence Victimization. [Image source=Gyeongnam Office of Education]

Among the total 3,897 victimized students, 42.4% reported experiencing verbal violence most frequently.

Physical violence accounted for 14.0%, group bullying 13.1%, cyberbullying 9.1%, stalking 5.8%, and both extortion and forced errands were at 5.5%. Experiences of sexual violence reached 4.4%.

Regarding the locations of victimization, classrooms accounted for the highest proportion at 28.8%, followed by hallways at 17.7%, playgrounds at 9.5%, parks at 8.9%, and cyberspace at 6.9%.

Location of School Violence Victimization. [Image source=Gyeongnam Office of Education]

School violence was found to occur mainly during break times.

Among victimized students, 32.4% reported incidents during breaks, 17.5% during lunch, 14.8% after school hours, and 11.5% at dismissal time.

The most common recipients of reports or disclosures after experiencing school violence were family members at 36.5%, followed by school teachers at 34.4%, and friends or senior/junior students at 14.4%.

The response rate for admitting to perpetrating school violence was 0.69%, an increase of 0.26 percentage points from 0.43% in the first survey of 2021.

By school level, perpetrator response rates were 1.63% for elementary school, 0.35% for middle school, and 0.03% for high school, with increases of 0.62 percentage points and 0.14 percentage points for elementary and middle schools respectively compared to the previous year.

The rate of students witnessing school violence was 4.07%, up 1.58 percentage points from the previous year.

Among those who witnessed violence, 70.2% reported or helped others afterward, 66.9% said they would report future incidents, and 33.1% said they would seek help or assist.

An official from the provincial education office stated, “The victim response rate, which had somewhat declined after COVID-19, has returned to pre-pandemic levels this year with the normalization of school life and full return to in-person classes. We plan to carefully analyze the school violence survey results and establish and implement tailored measures for each entity including the provincial education office, education support offices, and individual schools.”

The provincial education office plans to expand training annually to 200 teachers by 2025, based on the philosophy of restorative education, to create safe and peaceful schools throughout all aspects of life education.

To expand specialized personnel for school violence prevention, relationship restoration experts have been assigned to all eight city education support offices, and 254 relationship restoration support teams will be effectively operated across all 18 education support offices to support school relationship restoration.

By 2023, in cooperation with the National Police Agency, an early detection online system (App) for school violence will be introduced to detect signs or early occurrences of school violence and enable immediate response.

From the fourth week of September to the second week of October, a language culture improvement education week will be held, supporting school educational activities such as focused lessons on proper language use, posting kind comments, and distributing educational materials to learn empathy and communication.

An education office official said, “We will protect children from school violence and work on relationship restoration through the Gyeongnam School Violence Task Force, operation of the Gyeongnam Rainbow Center regional network, school violence prevention harmony programs, and cybercrime prevention education.”

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