Eighty-four students were suspended from publicly run junior high schools for violence in the 1999 school year to March 31, 2000, the Education Ministry said Thursday.

The violence included disrupting classes and bullying. The figure marks the second-largest number of such suspensions on record. It also represents an increase of 50 percent from the 56 students suspended for similar transgressions in the previous school year.

The largest number of suspensions recorded so far is 137, reported in the 1985 school year, when the ministry started collecting statistics after a wave of violence hit schools nationwide.

Of this year's total, 35 students were suspended for violence toward teachers, the ministry said. A further breakdown shows 16 students were suspended for violence against other students, 12 for disrupting classes and six for bullying.

This is the first year bullying has been cited as a reason for suspension, according to the ministry. The 84 suspensions comprised 78 boys and six girls, with 72 students suspended in the third year, or ninth grade.

Thirty-five students were suspended for three days or less, while 20 pupils were suspended for two weeks or longer.

According to the ministry, one ninth-grade female student was suspended for listening to a CD at a high volume, singing in class, verbally abusing a teacher and disrupting other classes.

A ninth-grade male student was suspended for smoking in class and for kicking a teacher in the stomach after he asked him to stop, the ministry said.

The number of suicides in the 1999 academic year by students at all the nation's primary and secondary schools -- comprising elementary, junior high and senior high schools -- stood at 163, down 29 from a year earlier.

Primary and secondary schools investigated 990 cases of suspected physical punishment of students by teachers during the academic year, down by 20 from the previous year, the said.