The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced Sunday that it will strengthen security checks at primary and secondary schools as part of measures against school violence and crimes.

From early next year, all visitors including parents at elementary, middle and high schools across the country must show their personal IDs and obtain a visitor pass to enter.

Faculty members and students will also need to wear badges indentifying themselves at all times when on school sites, and those without having proper ID and visitor passes will no longer allowed to visit schools, the ministry said.

The new security measures also include the use of closed-circuit television at schools and deployment of additional security personnel.

The ministry’s announcement came amid increasing concerns over sexual crimes against children and school violence.

In recent years, child sexual abuse cases occurred mostly in residential areas and in and around school sites. In the latest incident, a 66-year-old janitor at a primary school in Jinhae, South Gyeongsang Province, was arrested in July on suspicion of sexually abusing nine students.

Also, the ministry revealed earlier that it received more than 34,000 calls on its school violence hotline between January and July this year.

The Ministry announced that it will ensure all schools have at least one security office and relevant security check points and also replace outdated security equipment by 2015.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)