Schools in Korea are in crisis from the elementary to university level. Problems range from costly and prevalent off-school classes and high tuition fees for college students to rows between liberal and conservative educators over “human rights” in school. Classroom violence has worsened and adult society, preoccupied with its own problems, does not know what to do.

The suicide of a middle school boy in Daegu last week once again alarmed teachers and parents about the growing evil of bullying in schools. Juvenile suicide over bullying is not unprecedented but the case of this boy, surnamed Kim, particularly struck our heart because of the lengthy suicide note he left for his loving family before he jumped from his apartment window.

“Mom, daddy ... I’m truly sorry. I know this is the worst thing to you. But if I live this way, I’ll be causing more troubles to you. I tried to tell others about what they are doing to me, but they threatened me to be silent. Now, Seo ... and Wu ... will have to confess everything,” the 14-year-old Kim said in his handwritten note.

The two “friends” followed Kim to his apartment almost every day after school when both Kim’s parents were working. They beat Kim in his apartment, emptied the refrigerator of food, gave him “water torture,” forced him to beg for money from his mother and buy expensive clothes for them, played computer games in his house and forced him to smoke cigarettes. Seo and Wu told police investigators and teachers that what was written in the note was mostly true and that they did it for fun.

Kim asked his parents to change the apartment’s door key number because his bullies knew it. He closed the letter saying: “I’ll no longer be scolded by mom for things they forced me to do and I’ll end the days of being beaten, but tears are falling as I think I’ll not be able to see my beloved family anymore. I pray you will be happy without me. P.S. I haven’t seriously told you that I love you. I’ll say it now. Mom, dad, I love you.”

Reading his letter, we see a tender-hearted boy who loved his family but was most afraid of disappointing them. He summoned the last of his courage to expose what was happening to him and to other boys like him and to end the abuses taking place in school.

For a long time, parents, civic groups and education authorities have talked about violence inside and outside schools, and ostracism by peers and sexual and physical abuse, but little effective action has been taken. Teachers’ corporal punishment of students was the foremost concern in education circles and whether to establish a human rights edict for students emerged as a political issue.

Ideological arguments raged between the radical “Jeongyojo” teachers and conservative groups. While politically-tinted questions such as free school lunches and the perennial headache of the college entrance system were absorbing the energy of the education authorities, abuses and violence were occurring under their noses. Their all talk and no action about the abuses in school drove young students to take their own lives.

Bullied students like Kim are awaiting adults’ help to escape their torment. The current situation does not allow further procrastination. Reports from Daegu revealed that a girl student in the same school committed suicide in July over trouble with her classmates.

The education chief of Daegu Metropolitan City apologized for failing to protect the precious life of the middle school student. He pledged resolute measures to put an end to school violence. Schools will first give “questionnaires” to students to identify trouble and their perpetrators and then work out “safe” ways for victims to report their individual problems to the school authorities. Maximum efforts will be made in cooperation with law enforcement authorities to protect those reporting students from retaliation.

We urge education offices and schools across the country to take similar steps without delay before any more tragic incidents are reported. In addition, education authorities need to allow students to move to another school when parents of the victims of bullying believe it is the only way to save their children.