Students experience bullying at younger ages

By Na Jeong-ju

Korean students are experiencing bullying at school at younger ages than in the past, and a majority of victims don’t tell their parents or teachers, the latest government survey on violence shows.

According to the survey, conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family last year on 15,954 secondary school students, they were first bullied by their peers at an average age of 11.4, compared to 12.9 in 2009 and 13 in 2009.

The result suggests that the country needs to expand counseling services and other anti-violence programs to elementary schools.

About 38 percent of respondents said they observed most bullying cases in classrooms and 42 percent of the perpetrators were school seniors or classmates.

Some 32 percent of victims didn’t tell anybody about their experience. About 26 percent of victims said they spoke to friends after being bullied and 40 percent to their parents or teachers.

Asked why they didn’t speak to anybody, 52 percent said they thought it was unnecessary and 20 percent said they were afraid of retaliation from the perpetrators.

The ministry said most teenagers don’t receive any form of education designed to help prevent bullying and criminal activities at school due to a lack of staff. About 55 percent of those who had received some form of education responded that it was through watching DVDs and videos.

More than 20 percent of the students received anti-violence education from teachers from their own school, who lacked knowledge about violence and never engaged in counseling services.

Early this month, the government announced a set of measures to root out bullying, empowering principals to suspend violent pupils from school and to institute an alert system for organized student gangs. The measures followed a series of suicides by victims.

“Many primary and secondary schools do not provide sufficient and specialized anti-violence programs. We need to pick more professional consultants and send them to schools nationwide so that students can more easily access necessary counseling,” a ministry spokesman said.