The Education Ministry’s data on school violence does not match that compiled by local education offices, a lawmaker said Thursday, raising questions about the credibility of the government’s tally.

In 2012, the ministry said that 24,677 cases of violence occurred within the classroom, but the data from 17 education offices across Korea put the total number at 16,411, according to Rep. Jeong Jin-hoo of the minor opposition Justice Party.

The government put the numbers of perpetrators and victims at 42,192 and 41,303, which was considerably larger than those of the education offices at 30,477 and 28,910, respectively.

The disparity was most profound in violence cases in the North Chungcheong Province, where the ministry’s figure was over six times larger than that of local offices.

Jeong attributed the mismatch to the different sources that were used by each parties. The offices used the National Education Information System and reports from each school, but the government used date from Korea’s school information website (schoolinfo.go.kr) to which the offices have no access to.

“School violence has been one of the paramount issues of our society. Yet the very basic statistics are inconsistent, leaving us no choice but to question their credibility,” Jeong said, urging the ministry to come up with a “responsible solution.”

A ministry official said that while NEIS has a section on school violence, it is not mandatory for schools to fill it in, which caused the differences in the tallies.

President Park Geun-hye has called school violence one of four social ills that she vowed to tackle during her term, the others being sexual violence, domestic violence and substandard food.

The government plans to conduct its second nationwide biannual survey of the year on school violence from Sept. 19 to Oct. 24, the results of which will be revealed in November.

By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)