The share of elementary, middle and high school students who said they have experienced school violence hit an all-time high. By type, verbal abuse accounted for the largest share, and group ostracism and cyberbullying were found to be on the rise.
The Ministry of Education and the 17 metropolitan and provincial offices of education nationwide released on the 16th the results of the "first 2025 school violence survey."
According to the findings released that day, 2.5% of elementary, middle and high school students responded that they "have been subjected to school violence." This is the highest figure since the Ministry of Education began the related survey in 2013. It rose 0.4 percentage points from the first survey a year earlier (2.1%). The share of students reporting they had experienced school violence fell to 0.9% in 2020, when remote classes were implemented due to COVID-19, but has been on an upward trend for the fifth straight year since in-person classes resumed.
By school level, the response rate for experiencing school violence was highest in elementary schools at 5.0%, followed by middle schools (2.1%) and high schools (0.7%). All increased compared with the first survey a year earlier. The first survey a year ago showed elementary schools at 4.2%, middle schools at 1.6%, and high schools at 0.5%.
However, the Ministry of Education said it is difficult to conclude that the rise in the response rate for victimization means an expansion of school violence. That is because the number of school violence case filings has decreased. According to the ministry, the number of school violence case filings at elementary, middle and high schools last year was 58,502, down 4.79% from a year earlier. Elementary schools decreased from a year earlier, while middle and high schools were at similar levels.
By type of harm, verbal abuse was the most common at 39.0%, followed by group ostracism (16.4%), physical violence (14.6%), and cyberbullying (7.8%). Compared with a year earlier, verbal abuse fell 0.4 percentage points and physical violence fell 0.9 percentage points, while group ostracism rose 0.9 percentage points and cyberbullying rose 0.4 percentage points.
The share who said they have perpetrated school violence was 1.1%. That was up 0.1 percentage points from a year earlier, the same as 2013, which marked the previous all-time high.
Based on the results of this survey, the Ministry of Education plans to support measures to promote educational resolutions instead of judicial resolutions of conflicts. It will support relationship-improvement task forces consisting of counseling, welfare, reconciliation and mediation experts, and will develop relationship-repair programs tailored by school level and type of violence.
Lee Hae-suk, director general of the Student Health Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Education, said, "We will work with relevant ministries to build a system that can respond to the diversifying patterns of cyberbullying."