Amid rising school violence, many schools in Hanoi are trying to find ways to help students to decrease such behaviour.

School violence has stirred up public concerns

Concern among the public has recently been raised over the issue of violence at schools, especially among female students.

Many cases of school violence have been recorded across the country over recent few years.

One of the most prominent happened a few years ago at Kim Anh High School in Hanoi, when there was a battle between two rival gangs of schoolgirls. In spite of the efforts of school authorities, such incidents continue. One well-known example was one that happened at Duong Quang Secondary School in Hanoi’s Gia Lam District, where one girl, together with her friend forced a seventh-grade female student to ingest sleeping pills. Fortunately, the incident was caught in time and there were no serious harmful consequences.

The way forward

Nguyen Hiep Thong, Deputy Director of Hanoi Department of Education and Training, said the municipal education sector has conducted several education programmes for children, focusing especially on girls during the 2012-2013 school year.

“Still not enough has been done to address the problem effectively. Prevention methods should be put into place so that incidents like this do not occur in the first place," he said.

Some schools, such as Thang Long Secondary School in Hanoi have implemented measures to deal with the problem in a psychological manner. They have programmes to help young girls deal with emotional issues dealing with friendships and love interests.

Still, many parents are worried that the school system has not done enough to address the problem.