Support for School Violence Victims at the National Level

Ministry of Education Prepares Plan to Establish 'National-Level Student Healing and Recovery Specialized Institution'

The Ministry of Education announced on the 29th that it will prepare a plan to establish a ‘National-Level Student Healing and Recovery Specialized Institution.’

This plan focuses on professionally supporting students who need healing due to school violence and social-emotional issues, as well as performing specialized research and educational functions related to student healing and recovery.

The current ‘School Violence Prevention Act’ grants authority to metropolitan and provincial superintendents of education to designate or establish and operate institutions that support student healing and recovery. Accordingly, the 17 metropolitan and provincial superintendents have designated or established and are operating 303 support institutions for students who are victims of school violence.

However, there have been criticisms that there is a lack of a systematic support system for the capabilities of these support institutions and a specialized system at the national level to respond to school violence and social-emotional issues.

The Ministry of Education explained that this plan was prepared in response to the raised necessity of establishing a national-level specialized institution for student healing and recovery.

The official name of the institution will be selected through a public contest during the preparation phase to ensure it is easily accessible and understandable to users.

This specialized institution is planned to be established as a corporate entity based on the ‘School Violence Prevention Act’ and its enforcement decree. The related bill was approved at the full meeting of the National Assembly’s Education Committee on the 12th and is awaiting review by the Legislation and Judiciary Committee.

The support targets of the specialized institution are students who are experiencing difficulties or have risk factors due to school violence, social-emotional issues, or other reasons, and who require national-level healing and recovery support.

The specialized institution will perform roles such as intensive protection support and healing and recovery follow-up management for students who are victims of school violence, and will support research related to student healing and recovery as well as the management and capacity building of healing and recovery support institutions designated by metropolitan and provincial superintendents of education.

The Ministry of Education plans to form and operate a preparatory committee starting in August to establish the specialized institution, and aims to begin construction after design and preparation procedures as early as the beginning of next year, with the goal of opening in the second half of 2026.

Jang Sang-yoon, Vice Minister of Education, stated, “The state will take responsibility and provide systematic support so that students facing difficulties in various aspects such as school violence and social-emotional issues can quickly heal and recover and return to their daily lives.”

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