Du, when explaining the phenomenon of a female student in Hung Yen province being beaten by five others, said there are a number of causes for such behavior.

In the society, some people tend to settle disputes with violence. In addition, as classes all are overcrowded, teachers cannot take care of every student and they tend to neglect the ‘seeds of discord’ among students.

The difference in teachers’ and students’ ages leads to different ways to settle problems. “Once disagreement occurs, teachers want to settle problems ‘in peace’, because ‘a bad compromise is better than a good lawsuit’. But students want to fight to determine who the winners are.”

The limited cultural standards of people are also a factor. “Students in my classes never settle disagreements with violence. This is because the students are born into good families where they are educated,” he explained.

When school violence cases occur, parents and society will blame this on poor education quality. Parents complain that schools focus on providing academic knowledge but don’t pay appropriate attention to teach life skills to students. But parents and families must not reject their responsibility in educating children.

The headmaster of Phu Ung Secondary School, where the female student was abused, also commented that she was beaten because she was too meek and has poor life skills.

However, Nguyen Van Son, a teacher in HCMC, said the core value that needs to be emphasized is ‘life value’. “Social media and movies with violent and less educational images affect children, which will be shown when they solve questions in life,” Son said.

“At the age of puberty, children are still not aware of the value of ‘beautiful’ living and they misunderstand life values when seeing ‘bad eggs’ on internet,” he explained.

Sharing the same view, Pham Trung Tuyet, a journalist from the Voice of Vietnam (VOV) said: “Look at broadcasting programs, newspapers, Fanpage, YouTube channels and games titles that children watch every day, and see how adults behave. You will see that there is too much evil and bitterness, and too little love”.

Nguyen Ngoc Son from Ton Duc Thang University also said that the problem lies in education method. He believes that punishment must not be the way to settle the problem. It is necessary to deal with the problem by upgrading education.

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