Seoul school bullying increases
By Kim Jae-heun
The number of students who have suffered school violence increased by 25.4 percent, according to a survey, Wednesday.
The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE) released an annual report on school bullying after conducting an online interview in May of 646,669 students ranging from fourth graders at elementary schools to high school seniors.
Of the entire 700,343 invited to participate in the survey, 92.3 percent participated this time.
The report showed 11,425 students experienced school violence, compared with last year's 9,105.
According to the survey, 1.8 percent of students said they experienced violence at school, up 0.5 percentage points from a year earlier _ the first time in four years the percentage increased since 2014 when it recorded 1.9 percent. From 2014, it declined to 1.5 percent in 2015, then to 1.4 percent in 2016 and 1.3 percent last year.
Another notable result is the increase of school violence at elementary schools. Seven out of 10 students who said they were bullied were elementary school students.
The rate of school violence among elementary school students increased by 0.8 percentage points to 4 percent, while the corresponding numbers at middle schools rose 0.8 percentage points to 1 percent and at high schools 0.1 percentage points to 0.5 percent.
“We made the questions easier to understand for elementary school students on this year's survey and students had more time to participate in the research, which we think has contributed to an increase in the response rate on school violence,” an SMOE official said.
According to SMOE, verbal abuse was the most common kind of bullying with 35.1 percent, followed by social isolation at 17.6 percent, stalking at 12.2 percent, physical assault at 10.3 percent and cyberbullying at 10.2 percent.
However, cyberbullying was the most rampant kind of bullying among high school students.
In addition, 65.2 percent of violence occurred in school, compared with 27.9 percent outside of school.
Students mostly bullied others during break time with 31.8 percent and they were likely in the same class.
Meanwhile, over 80 percent of bullied students said they reported the case, up 0.7 percentage points from a year ago.
However, the number of bullying incidents reported by witnesses decreased by 10.1 percent compared to that of last year's. Over 31 percent of students said they did not report incidences even though they watched their friends get beat up.
The number of students who revealed themselves as perpetrators of school violence equaled to 2,756, which is around the same number as last year's.