Assemblyman Kim Dae-sik Introduces School Violence Prevention Act Amendment Bill as Principal Sponsor

"Campus Conflicts Such as School Violence and Teacher Authority Infringement Should Be Resolved Through Educational Approaches"

Assemblyman Kim Dae-sik (People Power Party, Sasang District, Busan) has taken the lead in proposing a revision to the School Violence Prevention Act.

Kim, a member of the National Assembly's Education Committee, announced on the 4th that he has introduced a partial amendment bill to the "Act on the Prevention and Countermeasures of School Violence" aimed at educational resolution of conflicts within schools such as school violence, enhancing schools' conflict management capabilities, and restoring educational effectiveness.

The main content of the amendment strengthens the responsibilities of the Superintendent of Education regarding school violence (Article 11 of the Act) by including school violence investigation and counseling (Article 11-2), and mandates early support for conflict mediation, relationship improvement, relationship restoration program operation, and related counseling to support school-level responses to school violence.

According to the Ministry of Education's announcement on September 26, the number of reported school violence cases increased by 6% from 57,981 cases in 2022 to 61,445 cases in 2023. Furthermore, the first and second rounds of the 2024 and 2023 school violence surveys showed that the victim response rate in the first full survey was 2.1%, the highest since 2018 (2.4%).

Assemblyman Kim's office explained that school violence infringes on students' right to education and requires strict measures. They emphasized the need for fundamental countermeasures including protection for victims of school violence, enhancing prevention and response capabilities at schools, and strengthening character education.

In April last year, the Ministry of Education announced a "School Violence Eradication Plan," and earlier this year, the Ministry and metropolitan and provincial offices of education have been operating a dedicated school violence investigator system to provide integrated and systematic support for school violence, including experts on investigation and counseling, dedicated assistants for victims, legal support for victimized students, reducing teachers' workload, and ensuring fairness in school violence investigations.

However, for practical effectiveness in eradicating school violence at the school level, it is pointed out that fundamentally thorough school violence prevention education and educational approaches such as mediation, arbitration, and relationship restoration for conflicts likely to occur within schools are necessary.

According to the "Operation Plan for the School Violence Zero Center and Dedicated School Violence Investigator System" announced by the Ministry of Education earlier this year, schools are to operate conflict mediation and relationship improvement programs during regular educational activities and run relationship restoration programs when school principals need to resolve school violence cases internally.

Currently, metropolitan and provincial offices of education operate support teams utilizing experts with mediation and arbitration capabilities for relationship restoration programs related to school violence, including victim-offender relationship restoration, relationship mediation, conflict transformation, and reconciliation mediation.

Assemblyman Kim Dae-sik stated, "For major conflicts within schools such as school violence, equipping schools with the capacity to resolve issues educationally is the fundamental solution. Therefore, support for this is necessary, and I will actively pursue legislative activities such as proposing bills to ensure that the law can be enacted during the 22nd National Assembly."

Assemblyman Kim Dae-sik.

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