LABUAN, 30 Sept 2017:
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is dissatisfied with efforts on eradication programmes on bullying in schools across the country.
Deputy Minister of Education Datuk P. Kamalanathan said the ministry – through state education departments – is working closely with the police to monitor the situation.
“I am dissatisfied as bully incidents are still happening. I want to see zero indiscipline in schools. I am open to ideas from the people on how we address this issue.
“The ministry is working on strategic planning to effectively address bullying in schools and is taking note of simple things (issues) that may led to an argument.”
Teachers are trained to address the indiscipline issues in schools with help of the parents and the community and believed children could have picked up bullying tendencies from their environment.
Kamalanathan commended the efforts of Labuan Education Department for effectively addressing ‘hot spot’ schools that were exposed to unhealthy activities.
As reported in June, the statistics from the Education Ministry revealed that there were more than 14,000 cases of bullying in schools between 2012 and 2015 – with most of them involving physical bullying.
Although the number of reported cases has dropped over the years, there is an increase in cases in secondary schools, from 0.06% of cases in 2015 to 0.11% of cases last year.
In 2015, 2,968 cases were reported compared with 2,825 cases in 2014 and 4,120 in 2013.
Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE) chairman Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim was reported as saying schools should have a zero tolerance policy towards bullying.