Although campus crime dropped significantly from January to September this year, 43 students were killed in criminal acts at schools across China.   

The ministry's public order management bureau received 200 reports of all crimes including 103 criminal cases during the first half of 2006. The crimes resulted in 43 deaths.  

The ministry said more than 50 percent of the reported student deaths were caused by student conflicts and many were the result of knife fights.  

China's police investigated 36,648 school crimes in the first nine months of the year, down 8.16 percent over the same period of last year, the Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday.   

Property-related offences including looting, robbery and assaults have declined by 38.9 percent, 17.1 percent and 13.8 percent respectively, according to the ministry.  

The ministry has stationed more than 102,000 police and set up more than 32,000 security posts on and around campuses across the country to stem school violence.

(Xinhua News Agency October 13, 2006)