By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

The government will check up on the psychiatric status of 365,000 students from 470 primary and secondary schools nationwide to prevent juvenile delinquency or ``teenagers-gone-wild'' behavior stemming from instability, the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs said Tuesday.

The government decided to check up on elementary school first and fourth graders; and middle school and high school freshmen to look for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression and addictive use of the Internet.

Students testing positive will be given clinical treatment and counseling.

Hanyang University research showed that 3.3 percent of primary school second and fourth graders exhibited signs of ADHD. In a separate paper by Seoul City, 2.3 percent of freshmen in middle and high school suffered from depression.

``We consider them diseases, something to be medically treated,'' Shin Ji-Myung, a health ministry official, said. The health authorities have already unveiled a plan to test all 630,000 elementary fourth graders for addictive use of the Internet.

On top of the psychiatric evaluation, the authorities will institute a program to let school dropouts take graduation certification tests so that they can start a new life.

These teenagers can enroll at vocational schools, alternative educational institutes and elsewhere according to their aptitude. Individual mentoring services will be provided and teenagers can also join physical exercise, cultural and other educational programs.

Only 14 percent of teenagers who quit school return to studying afterwards. The government concluded that these students need help, care and love from society, a government official said.

bjs@koreatimes.co.kr