SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's school violence hit a record high, driven by the deepening digital isolation and the post-COVID-19 pandemic aggression, education ministry data showed Wednesday.
According to a school violence survey of 3.9 million students ranging from fourth grade through high school senior year, the overall victim rate stood at 2.9 percent in 2026, up 0.4 percentage points from a year earlier.
It marked the highest since the Ministry of Education began tracking the data in 2013, indicating that almost three out of every 100 elementary, middle and high school students experienced school violence.
The online survey, conducted at least twice a year, saw a participation rate of 81.9 percent, or 3.19 million students, in this year's first round, down 0.3 percentage points from last year.
The survey tracked school violence experiences from the second semester of 2025 through May 2026.
The historic peak underscored an alarming trend as school violence soared relentlessly every single year throughout the 2020s following the post-pandemic school normalization.
The victim rate, which stood at 1.6 percent in 2019, plummeted to 0.9 percent in 2020 due to remote learning during the pandemic, but then climbed to 1.1 percent in 2021, 1.7 percent in 2022, 1.9 percent in 2023, 2.1 percent in 2024, and 2.5 percent in 2025.
Experts warned that the figures revealed a disturbing, longstanding scar from the pandemic era, which caused years of social isolation, alongside heavier reliance on digital devices that hindered the conflict resolution skills of students and led to heightened aggression in classrooms.
"Amid the growing daily use of digital devices, teenagers lack experience in forming direct, face-to-face relationships with others, and their capacity for empathy is also worsening," said Sung Yun-sook, a senior research fellow at the National Youth Policy Institute who conducted and analyzed the survey.
The victim rate rose across all tiers, with elementary schools hitting 5.7 percent, middle schools at 2.3 percent and high schools at 0.8 percent.
By type, verbal violence remained the most prevalent at 37.8 percent, followed by group bullying with 17.1 percent, physical violence with 15.7 percent and cyberbullying with 7 percent.
While verbal violence and cyberbullying decreased by 1.2 percentage points and 0.8 percentage points, respectively, physical violence and group bullying increased by 1.1 percentage points and 0.7 percentage points each.
The overall offender rate reached 0.8 percent this year, down 0.3 percentage points from last year.
The witness rate, however, advanced 0.6 percentage points to 6.7 percent, indicating that while fewer students admit to instigating violence, a larger portion of students is exposed to a hostile school environment. ■