A serious case of school violence occurred at a middle school in Gyeonggi Province, leading to the transfer of the student responsible.
According to the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education on the 21st, a first-year student identified as A had committed acts of school violence, including violence, abusive language, sexual harassment, and extortion, against a total of seven students from his class and other classes from March to June this year.
It was confirmed that A hit the victim students for no apparent reason, coerced them into using honorific language toward him, and forced them to pay for their purchases at a supermarket.
He also used judo techniques learned from physical education to knock out one of the victimized students and engaged in bizarre acts of inserting foreign substances into their bodies.
These facts came to light after the victim students reported the incidents to the school.
After receiving the report on June 24, the school separated A from the victim students beginning the next day until the summer vacation, implementing measures such as attendance suspension, and held a School Violence Countermeasures Committee (SVCC) meeting on the 30th of last month during the break, deciding to transfer A.
The SVCC can impose discipline up to expulsion, but since elementary and middle schools are compulsory education, transferring is, in effect, the most severe punishment. A's transfer was reportedly completed the day before, on the 20th of this month.
This case has also been posted on the National Assembly's electronic petition for public consent. A petition signer, who identified himself as a family member of a victim, stated, "The perpetrator said that his parents were on the school management committee and that he could act recklessly due to that," and suggested, "The qualifications of the perpetrator's parents should be re-examined, and their responsibilities should be strengthened."
An official from the Provincial Office of Education remarked, "After the SVCC review, the A side did not fully comply with the procedures for submitting documents required for transfer, which delayed the transfer, but we prioritized the protection of the victim students and proceeded with the transfer as quickly as possible, even with some incomplete documents."