A mother of a student who suffered from school violence speaks during a press conference, wearing a white mask, in Seoul, Saturday. Yonhap

Recent data revealed that the number of school violence cases in Korea has increased from the previous year, despite the comprehensive measures announced by the Ministry of Education to address the problem.

According to data obtained by Rep. Jin Sun-mee of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) on Sunday, a total of 61,445 cases of school violence were reported last year across elementary, middle and high schools.

The figure represents an increase of 3,464 cases from the 2022 school year.

In April last year, the education ministry introduced a comprehensive set of measures to address school violence for the first time in 11 years. These measures included a plan to factor students' records of school violence into their college admissions starting from the 2026 academic year.

However, despite these measures, incidents of school violence have increased in all grades.

In particular, incidents of school violence have risen significantly in high schools, with the number of cases reaching 12,273—an increase of 1,394 cases, or 12.8 percent, from the previous year.

Elementary schools saw 19,805 cases, while middle schools saw 29,007 cases, showing respective increases of 885 cases (4.7 percent) and 1,079 cases (3.9 percent) year-on-year.

According to the latest data on school violence across different regions, Gyeonggi Province reported the highest number of cases with 16,155, followed by Seoul with 7,266 and South Gyeongsang Province with 4,752.

The number of repeat incidents of school violence increased to 2,338 cases last year, up by 58 cases (2.5 percent) from 2020. Regionally, Gwangju saw 151 students involved in recurring violence, followed by 46 in Gangwon Province and 42 in Gyeonggi Province.

In terms of types of school violence, physical violence was the most common, with 13,587 cases. This was followed by verbal abuse at 11,082 cases, sexual violence at 3,685 cases, cyberbullying at 3,422 cases, coercion at 1,777 cases, extortion at 1,772 cases and bullying at 1,701 cases.

The education ministry had planned to release the results of the second edition of the School Violence Survey for 2023 at the end of last month, but the announcement has been unexpectedly postponed to September.

"The Ministry of Education has been indefinitely postponing the announcement of a survey result on school violence, citing the excuse of preparing measures as the ministry's comprehensive measure showed no effect on reducing school violence," Jin said. "We need to preemptively manage the current status of school violence by city and province by re-examining the overall measures currently in effect."