SEOUL, Feb. 6 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Monday announced a set of comprehensive countermeasures to root out school violence that call for stern punishment of perpetrators and protection of victims. The measures also emphasize preventive, rather than punitive, measures, and closer supervision of violence and the reinforcement of ethical and physical education.

Student violence has emerged as a major social issue with a recent series of suicides of students who were bullied by their peers. In December, the nation was stunned by news that a middle school student from Daegu, some 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, took his own life after being brutally bullied by his classmates for months. Similar cases of bullied students opting to commit suicide occurred in other parts of the country afterwards. Two alleged offenders in Daegu were indicted last month.