Government prioritizes campaign against school bullying in New YearThe 14-year-old boy who killed himself in Gwangju last week had been bullied by his peers, leading the government to announce on the first working day of the New Year that it has given top priority to dealing with school bullying.According to Gwangju police, three students had beaten him, robbed him of money and sent him threatening text messages. His friends told police that the boy had been hit by three of his classmates 29 tim

Ministry strengthens laws against school violencePolice said Monday that the 14-year-old boy who killed himself in Gwangju last week had been bullied by his peers, leading the government to announce on the first working day of the New Year that it has given top priority to dealing with school bullying.Police also confirmed that three students had beaten him, robbed him of money and sent him threatening text messages.His friends told police that the boy had been hit by three of his classmates 29

The government has set aside more funds for state scholarships to ease the heavy college tuition burden, allowing college students to receive loans without having to repay them before finding employment, the Education Ministry said Monday.Increased tuition subsidies will be offered to college students through the 2012 national budget as the government added 250 billion won ($216 million) to the previous 1.5 trillion won, the ministry said. The extra subsidies are expected to decrease nominal col

Ministry seeks to strengthen laws against school violencePolice said Monday that the 14-year-old boy who killed himself in Gwangju last week had been bullied by his peers.They also confirmed that three students had beaten him, robbed him of money and sent him threatening text messages.His friends told police that the boy had been hit by three of his classmates 29 times, Gwangju Police Station said.The suicide came a week after another 14-year-old boy in Daegu jumped to his death after bullying b

A 14-year-old student at a middle school in the southwestern city of Gwangju apparently killed himself after being bullied by his peers, adding to the recent spate of bullying-related suicides.The Gwangju Police said Friday that the boy was found hanging from a corridor railing in his apartment building on Thursday morning. They found no suicide note. The police investigation took statements from his friends and father that he had been harassed by one of his classmates. Two of his friends told p

Four out of five foreign teenagers who come to Korea to live with their foreign mothers or fathers when they remarry Korean spouses are not attending school, according to research by a think tank on Friday. There are a total of 875 foreign teenagers living in Seoul, but their school attendance rate is only 21.7 percent, the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family said in a report. The number of foreigners under the age of 21 registered with the immigration office is 5,726, and 34 percent of them ar

Gangnam, one of the most bustling spots in southern Seoul, will sparkle on New Year’s Eve with special events to be held for the first time by its district office. A festive mood prevails during the last week of 2011, with citizens writing their New Year’s hopes on “Wish Balls” set up along the 1 km Gangnam Boulevard from the Kyobo book store to Gangnam subway station. “I promised myself that I will become a better person,” said 23-year-old Yoo Kyung-min, who visited there with her friend on Tue

The Education Ministry on Thursday listed 36 universities to face sanctions for poor management of international students. The move aims to clamp down on increases in foreign student enrollment for financial benefit and lax management, which has led to more illegal immigrant students here. The ministry conducted a four-month inquiry into 347 schools ― 201 four-year universities and 146 vocational colleges ― to assess how well they manage foreign students. Of the 36 schools, 17 will face restrict

A recent spate of student suicides has drawn attention to school bullying, with some cases hushed up to save schools’ reputations, leading victims to distrust their schools and teachers. Reported cases of bullying at schools sharply increased last year from 5,606 in 2009 to 7,823 last year, although the number had fallen by about 3,000 between 2008 and 2009, according to a national survey. According to the Teenage Violence Prevention Center, 14,939 students have asked for help with bullying this

Ministry measures call for dispatch of counselors, strengthening monitorsThe recent suicides of school bullying victims in Daegu have shocked the nation, especially since their parents and teachers didn’t even know what they had been going through. Criticism has mounted over schools’ negligence, and parents and education experts have called for measures to prevent school violence. A 14-year-old, who leapt to his death last week, left a suicide note detailing the abuse he suffered. The boy surnam

Four out of 10 adult Seoul residents were unmarried last year, and the trend of marrying later in life has led to more single-member households.According to statistics compiled by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the number of singles aged 25 to 49 in the capital has surged seven-fold from 215,184 in 1970 to 1,586,569 in 2010. The proportion of singles in the age group increased from 11.9 percent to 37.9 percent over the cited period.As more adults get married later in life, the average age fo

Ministry measures call for dispatch of counselors, strengthening monitorsThe recent suicides of school bullying victims in Daegu have shocked the nation, especially since their parents and teachers didn’t even notice what they had been going through. Criticism has mounted over schools’ negligence and prevention of school violence has been called for by parents and education experts. A 14-year-old, who leapt to his death last week, left a suicide note detailing the abuse he suffered. The boy, sur

Air in Seoul has been as clean as that on the resort island of Jeju for 202 days this year, with the dust level falling to the lowest in about a decade, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said Sunday.The annual average dust particle concentration in the air was 47 micrograms per cubic meter this year, the lowest since 1995 when the city started to measure the dust level in the air. In 1995, the dust concentration in the air was 78 micrograms. The number of days as clean as in Jeju, that is 45 mic

Hundreds of college students will get a chance to receive internships abroad, as part of a government program to help them develop global mindsets and land jobs after graduation, the Education Ministry said Sunday. Under the global internship program launched in 2005, the ministry will select 850 college students ― 250 from four-year universities and 600 from community colleges ― as 2012 overseas interns to be sent to English-speaking countries such as the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Australia, a

Ministry to tighten restructuring to weed out underperforming schoolsUniversities found to have committed admission scams and academic irregularities such as hiring unqualified faculty or giving undeserved grades will face a cut of up to 10 percent in their freshmen enrollment, the Education Ministry said Sunday. Schools committing irregularities will face penalties including bans on freshmen recruitment in the first stage and cuts in their number in the second stage, according to a revised law

Han Bi-ya, a popular travel writer and advisor to the U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund, has been invited to give lectures to undergraduate students at Ewha Womans University as a visiting professor, the school said. Han will give lectures to students at the department of international studies from the spring semester next year, according to the school. Ewha’s department of international studies is the first school established to nurture global-minded individuals at the undergraduate level. 

A smartphone application that allows users to report school and sexual violence against students, receive counseling information and provides tips against violence has been released by the Education Ministry, officials said Thursday. The application, named “Goodbye school violence,” is available for free on iPhone and Android phones from Thursday.It features five services: it sends a text message or makes a call to a nearby police station in case of emergencies; provides guidelines in case a stu

The government said Wednesday that it will expand incentives to attract more foreign education institutions to Korea in an attempt to increase the nation’s competitiveness in global education business.It plans to encourage international education institutions to come to Korea by easing restrictions, providing more incentives and subsidies and simplifying review processes. It also will seek to revise a related law to allow them to send their earnings back to their countries and apply the accounti

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has fired 65 officials since February 2009 in keeping with the so-called “one-strike out” sanction system designed to weed out corrupt officials. The officials caught embezzling or accepting bribes in excess of 1 million won ($800) were dismissed and will not be reinstated, city officials said Wednesday.The system led to the firings of 28 officials in 2009, 24 in 2010 and 13 this year. The money amounts ranged from as much as 64 million won ($55,000) to as littl

The Seoul Metropolitan Council passed an ordinance granting more rights to students amid controversy over some contested issues in the ruling that has caused a confrontation between a progressive and conservative group. Until Monday when the ordinance was passed, the opposing groups protested four disputed points of the ordinance: respect of students’ sexual orientation, pregnancy and childbirth, religion and the right to hold collective protests. But with the ordinance expected to take effect n