By Kim Se-jeong
In the wake of a child abuse case that rattled the nation last week, the government said Wednesday it will tighten monitoring of children who drop out of schools, as a means to prevent child abuse.
According to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the government will make mandatory inspections of the homes of students who are absent from school for more than seven days without provision of an adequate reason.
The move follows a recent case of abuse in which it was discovered that a game-addicted father abused his daughter for two years, keeping her from attending school and not providing sufficient nutrition.
The two ministries held an emergency meeting where they decided to enact the measure next month in response to the number of students who are regularly absent from some 10,000 elementary, middle and high schools nationwide.
Social workers will visit the homes of students who have been reported as truants, and more details will be decided at follow-up meetings, the ministries said.
"Every year we collect data on students who drop out, but the data is insufficient to thoroughly locate or grasp the situation of children who cannot attend school due to child abuse," an education ministry official said.
According to a related law, if a student misses school for more than seven days without a proper reason, the teacher must report this to the leader of the community where the student lives ― a measure to check whether the student's family has moved to another region. If there was no move, the community leader should then report this to the head of the regional educational office, who is supposed to check regularly whether the student has returned to school.
"The father of the victim did not send her to school for two years," the official said. "Her teacher at the previous school visited her home in 2012 but could not do anything as the family moved out. We hope the investigation can prevent such cases."
Last Friday, the 32-year-old father and his girlfriend were arrested for abusing and starving his 11-year-old daughter over a period of two years.
Traumatized and malnourished, the girl only weighed 16 kilograms, a standard weight for a four-year-old child, according to the police.
She attended school in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, but suddenly stopped going in the latter half of 2012. The school followed the due process of reporting. Her teacher and local government workers visited her home and discovered that the family had moved out, leaving them with no other choice but to give up without finding any information on the girl's whereabouts or safety.
The family moved to their current home in Incheon in 2013, but the father did not notify the local government there of the move, so nobody knew that the girl was there, consequently causing to be excluded from the education system.
The National Assembly is also moving to prevent such a case from recurring. It plans to revise the related law so that police can be involved when a child's whereabouts are in question. It also plans to instate harsher penalties for parents who fail to report their relocations to the local government. Currently, failure to do is penalized with a 50,000 won fine.
In the wake of a child abuse case that rattled the nation last week, the government said Wednesday it will tighten monitoring of children who drop out of schools, as a means to prevent child abuse.
According to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the government will make mandatory inspections of the homes of students who are absent from school for more than seven days without provision of an adequate reason.
The move follows a recent case of abuse in which it was discovered that a game-addicted father abused his daughter for two years, keeping her from attending school and not providing sufficient nutrition.
The two ministries held an emergency meeting where they decided to enact the measure next month in response to the number of students who are regularly absent from some 10,000 elementary, middle and high schools nationwide.
Social workers will visit the homes of students who have been reported as truants, and more details will be decided at follow-up meetings, the ministries said.
"Every year we collect data on students who drop out, but the data is insufficient to thoroughly locate or grasp the situation of children who cannot attend school due to child abuse," an education ministry official said.
According to a related law, if a student misses school for more than seven days without a proper reason, the teacher must report this to the leader of the community where the student lives ― a measure to check whether the student's family has moved to another region. If there was no move, the community leader should then report this to the head of the regional educational office, who is supposed to check regularly whether the student has returned to school.
"The father of the victim did not send her to school for two years," the official said. "Her teacher at the previous school visited her home in 2012 but could not do anything as the family moved out. We hope the investigation can prevent such cases."
Last Friday, the 32-year-old father and his girlfriend were arrested for abusing and starving his 11-year-old daughter over a period of two years.
Traumatized and malnourished, the girl only weighed 16 kilograms, a standard weight for a four-year-old child, according to the police.
She attended school in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, but suddenly stopped going in the latter half of 2012. The school followed the due process of reporting. Her teacher and local government workers visited her home and discovered that the family had moved out, leaving them with no other choice but to give up without finding any information on the girl's whereabouts or safety.
The family moved to their current home in Incheon in 2013, but the father did not notify the local government there of the move, so nobody knew that the girl was there, consequently causing to be excluded from the education system.
The National Assembly is also moving to prevent such a case from recurring. It plans to revise the related law so that police can be involved when a child's whereabouts are in question. It also plans to instate harsher penalties for parents who fail to report their relocations to the local government. Currently, failure to do is penalized with a 50,000 won fine.
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