ed Serious school violence

All of society should stage anti-bullying drive

It is becoming increasingly apparent a 14-year-old boy’s suicide under the duress of school bullies last month was only the tip of the iceberg. Reports say violence at school grounds is so severe and widespread that they bring up thoughts of organized crime rings.

The school violence issue has caught most grown-ups ― teachers, parents and policy-makers for whom secondary education means little more than preparation for college entrance ― completely off guard. In short, these student mobsters are products of grade-is-everything competition and crude materialism gripping Korean society.

So any remedy should eventually aim at changing the educational and social atmosphere. As are the cases with most fundamental approaches, this is certain to take too long, while the situation calls for urgent actions.

It’s regrettable in this regard that the government and the governing party only just met, more than a month after the incident broke out and weeks after President Lee Myung-bak called for swift measures, and came up with nothing more than repeated pledges of beefing up student counseling at middle schools. Are these officials preoccupied with premature election fervor and political scandals?

Education Minister Lee Joo-ho said the government would work out a policy package by early next month at the latest. But people don’t seem to expect too much less because of their past experiences than because this is not a problem either the ministry or the government can solve alone. It is an issue that requires the undivided attention of the entire society, namely all public and private organizations as well as students, teachers and parents.

There are two most shocking aspects of the current situation. For one, parents, of both assaulters and victims, say they had never dreamed their children will face such situations. The other is most of the assailants had little guilty conscience about their behavior. These can sum up the dismal reality, in which many Korean parents and their children have little meaningful dialogue: parents just pressure their offspring to study harder, overlooking most other problems, big or small. Some children vent their frustration and find self-esteem from bullying others.

If education is to begin at home, Korea needs a system that holds parents accountable for their children’s misfortune, either as attackers or as victims.

Schools and educational officials ought to grade teachers not just by the academic performances of their students but by the number of problematic students under their tutelage, which will hopefully lead them to spend more time on character education. Civic groups might as well consider operating rescue teams from hazing on and off campuses in concerted efforts with schools.

Society might need to take strong-arm tactics against the most violent students by segregating them in special facilities. But such an eye-for-an-eye approach should be limited to extreme cases.

In this vein, we oppose attempts by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education to suspend the implementation of ordinance for students’ human rights, saying it would encourage campus violence.

As always, it is far easier to handle problems caused by too much love and respect than ones resulting from lack of them.