Lee urges preventive education, active response; vows to step up college reformsThe start of 2012 was hectic for Education Minister Lee Ju-ho, after a spate of student suicides widely blamed on school bullying.Determined to root out recurrent school violence, Lee pledged to make sweeping changes to how schools and society deal with it. For the past few weeks, he has been busy collecting ideas and suggestions from students, teachers, parents and experts.Saying school violence was related to diver

Social Affairs Jan. 12, 2012

The government and the ruling party agreed to open a school violence hotline as one major step to responding to school violence, Education Ministry officials said Wednesday. A high-level meeting of Grand National Party members and ministers of related agencies agreed to unify separate school violence hotlines into “117,” which will be operational 24 hours a day nationwide. “As we remember 112 as a number for reporting crimes, and 119 for fire reports, we decided to make 117 a number with which p

Social Affairs Jan. 11, 2012

Korean students will be able to use digital tools such as calculators and computers in math class from 2014 under the government plan to strengthen the real-life application of mathematics, Education Ministry officials said Tuesday. The ministry will also oversee the math curriculum of middle and high schools to see if they follow the regular public curriculum in an attempt to curb excessive spending on private tutoring, according to officials. Currently, Korean students are not allowed to use c

Social Affairs Jan. 10, 2012

As a Russian Mars probe that stalled in orbit may fall to the Earth sometime next week, the government announced Tuesday that it would broadcast its location real time on the websites of related agencies and via Twitter until its crash.The 13.2-ton probe named Phobos-Grunt, launched last November, was scheduled to explore the Martian moon Phobos, but became stuck in orbit when its rocket boosters failed, and computer malfunctioned, according to the Russian space agency Roscosmos. It is expected

Social Affairs Jan. 10, 2012

Likely to have a hard time mixing with peers due to language, appearanceStudents from multicultural families are at a higher risk of being bullied at school as they are likely to have a hard time mingling with their peers due to language problems and racial discrimination. Four out of five foreign teenagers in Seoul are out of school largely because of discrimination and bullying, coupled with study problems, according to a recent city survey. It hasn’t been long since the government started to

Social Affairs Jan. 9, 2012

Likely to have a hard time mixing with peers due to language, appearanceStudents from multicultural families are at a higher risk of being bullied at school as they are likely to have a hard time mingling with their peers due to language problems and their different appearances.An 11-year-old boy born to a Bangladeshi father and a Korean mother was beaten by his classmates who reportedly hated him for no reason, a local media outlet said. He had been so abused until recently that he suffers from

Social Affairs Jan. 9, 2012

A student accused of beating a 14-year-old boy who later committed suicide in the southwestern city of Gwangju last month is expected to face legal action, as the police have decided to take tougher measures against school violence. The boy is believed to have killed himself after being brutally bullied by his peers.The Gwangju Police said that they will issue an arrest warrant for a 15-year-old middle school student on charges of assaulting the victim and other students and taking money from th

Social Affairs Jan. 6, 2012

Non-Korean speakers will now be able to know what is going on when they hear air raid sirens in the middle of the day in Seoul. The Seoul Metro said Wednesday they would announce the civil defense and other drills for terrorism, subway accidents, blackouts and fires in multiple languages including English, Chinese and Japanese, so that foreigners in the capital will know what’s happening around them and what they should do. “The number of foreign visitors to Korea now reaches about 10 million (a

Social Affairs Jan. 4, 2012

The Education and Science Ministry announced Wednesday they are inviting foreign scientists to take part in the research projects of local colleges, research centers and companies. The annual invitation program is offers them a chance to join local research projects. Foreign scientists and Korean scientists working overseas who have more than five years of experience or outstanding achievements are eligible to apply.The fields open for application are pure science, mechanical engineering, materi

Social Affairs Jan. 4, 2012

Experts call for long-term measures involving the whole of societyMeasures to deal with school violence have mostly been ineffective and short-sighted, the head of an anti-bullying group has said. Recent school bullying-related suicides have attracted media attention and the government has once again proposed a set of measures and held a series of high-level and school-level meetings to devise new ways to prevent bullying. But Kim Gun-chan, director of the School Violence Prevention Center, a ci

Social Affairs Jan. 4, 2012

Experts call for long-term effective measures involving the whole societySchool violence has drawn more attention every time school bullying cases are reported, prompting the government to come up with measures to resolve these problems. But experts say the measures have proven mostly ineffective and short-sighted. School violence incidents occur incessantly, leaving deep scars on the school community and society at large.Recently, the government has once again proposed a set of measures after a

Social Affairs Jan. 3, 2012