Korea’s Education Ministry will crack down as videos of MMA-style fights coincide with a second straight record in reported school violence.
“Not bad for a high schooler.”
That was the taunt from a middle school student after a roughly five-minute fight with a high school student in April, as shown in a YouTube video.
“Hey, show some respect,” the older student shot back, appearing ready to charge at the younger student. An adult filming the video stepped in to stop them.
The video has drawn more than 120,000 views and hundreds of comments, as of Wednesday.
Such videos are becoming increasingly common as teenagers imitate yacha rules, a form of bare-knuckle fighting with no protective gear and few restrictions on where bouts take place, growing popular as a new form of school bullying.
“Teenagers watch a lot of these YouTube videos, and we are increasingly seeing people egg them on by shouting, ‘Fight! Fight!’ and filming it without any professional sports instructor present,” said Cho Won-jin, an attorney at Dongju Law Firm who specializes in school violence cases. “Unlike adult combat sports, fights between teenagers are highly likely to be treated as school violence even when both sides agreed to fight.”
The trend has grown enough for education authorities to take notice, with the Ministry of Education announcing that it will crack down on it.
The move comes as physical violence and bullying in schools are on the rise, even as cyberbullying has declined slightly.
The Education Ministry released the results of its first school violence survey of 2026 on Wednesday. The survey was conducted with 16 metropolitan and provincial education offices from April to May.
The survey covered some 3.9 million students from fourth grade in elementary school through the third year of high school. The share of elementary, middle and high school students who said they had experienced school violence reached a record high for the second consecutive year.
Of the 3.19 million students who participated, or 81.9 percent of those surveyed, 2.9 percent said they had experienced school violence, up 0.4 percentage points from 2.5 percent in the first survey of 2025.
The figure has climbed steadily since school life returned to normal after the Covid-19 pandemic. The figure fell as low as 0.9 percent in 2020 before rising to 2.1 percent in 2024, 2.5 percent in 2025 and 2.9 percent in 2026.
Elementary school students reported the highest rate at 5.7 percent, followed by middle school students at 2.3 percent and high school students at 0.8 percent. Compared to 2025, the rates rose by 0.7 percentage points for elementary school students, 0.2 percentage points for middle school students and 0.1 percentage points for high school students.
Verbal abuse was the most common form at 37.8 percent, followed by bullying and social exclusion at 17.1 percent, physical violence at 15.7 percent and cyberbullying at 7 percent.
Compared to 2025, the share involving verbal abuse fell by 1.2 percentage points, and the share involving cyberbullying fell by 0.8 percentage points. However, bullying by social exclusion rose by 0.7 percentage points, while physical violence increased by 1.1 percentage points.
Much of the violence happened on school grounds. School grounds and buildings accounted for 69.6 percent of reported incidents. Classrooms were the most common location at 28.2 percent, followed by spaces used for after-school programs at 16.4 percent and playgrounds and gyms at 9.1 percent.
Classmates were also most often identified as the perpetrators. Students in the victim’s own class accounted for 48.2 percent of cases. Students in other classes in the same grade accounted for another 29.8 percent.
“What starts as fooling around often becomes increasingly aggressive and ends up as school violence,” said the participants in discussion sessions hosted by the Education Ministry featuring students and teachers.
The Education Ministry plans to step up its response by working with the Korean National Police Agency to expand police-led violence-prevention programs.
The ministry also plans to strengthen its response to online abuse, especially the circulation of videos showing school violence.
“We will do everything we can to put effective prevention programs in place that teach students how to handle real-life conflicts and to establish educational approaches focused on repairing relationships,” said Shim Min-cheol, director-general of the Student Health and Safety Policy Bureau at the Education Ministry. “We will also work closely with other government agencies to respond quickly to emerging forms of school violence.”
BY KIM MIN-SANG [lee.jiwon10@joongang.co.kr]
