Education Ministry Striving Towards Zero Bully Cases in Schools

LABUAN (Sabah), Sept 30 (Bernama) -- The Ministry of Education (MOE) is dissatisfied with efforts on eradication programmes on bullying in schools across the country. Deputy Minister of Education P Kamalanathan said the ministry, through state education departments, were 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,” he said a press conference after attending An Evening with Labuan Teachers at Labuan Matriculation College, here Friday. “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.” The teachers were trained to address the indiscipline issues in schools with help of the parents and the community and believed that children could have picked up bullying tendencies from their environment. Kamalanathan commended the efforts of Labuan Education Department for effectively address the ‘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 per cent of cases in 2015 to 0.11 per cent 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 Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim was reported as saying that schools should have a zero tolerance policy towards bullying. --BERNAMA