Last year, South Korea saw the highest number of suicides among elementary, middle and high school students ever, with 18,000 at risk.

It has been reported that 221 elementary, middle and high school students attempted suicide in South Korea last year, the highest number ever recorded. Nearly 18,000 students in elementary, middle and high schools were classified as at-risk for suicide.
On the 24th, the Ministry of Education (equivalent to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) announced that the results of the "Student Emotional and Behavioral Characteristics Test" conducted last year showed that a total of 17,667 students in elementary, middle and high schools nationwide were in the suicide risk group.
This is 1.1% of the students tested (1,658,715 people). By school level, the largest number of cases were junior high school students (9,753 cases), followed by high school students (7,880 cases).
There were 18 school students and 16 elementary school students. Of the students in the suicide risk group, 2,417 people, or 13.7%, were found to have not received coordinated treatment from a specialist institution.
The "concern group" (including suicide risk groups) - those with problems in emotional and behavioral development who require counselling - totaled 72,300 people, or 4.4% of the total.
The number of suicides among elementary, junior high, and high school students last year was counted at 221, an increase of seven from the previous year (214), the highest number since the survey was first conducted in 2012.
The suicide rate, which indicates the number of suicides per 100,000 students, was 4.3, up from the previous year (4.11). Ten years ago, in 2015, the number of suicides was 93, and the suicide rate was 1.53.
The Ministry of Education's "Student Emotional and Behavioral Characteristics Test" is conducted to detect mental health problems among students at an early stage. The test is administered to students in the first and fourth grades of elementary school, first grade of middle school, and high school.
He is a first year student at the school.