20 Nov 2016

Mmei Junior Secondary School head, Ms Patricia Sebina, has suggested an anti-bullying policy for schools.

In her presention at the National Secondary School Heads Conference in Francistown on recently, Ms Sebina said schools did not have a legally binding anti-bullying policy.

She said there was no national data available on the prevalence of bullying, the types or laid out strategies used to stop bullying.

She said school bullies turned schools into an arena where education was almost impossible to attain, pointing out that back in the days, bullying was not seen as a problem but was seen as part of growing up.

The school head said bullying in schools was widespread and ignoring it, teaches students who bullied others that they can do so without consequences.

Ms Sebina said their survey in 2012 showed that 40 percent of students reported having been picked on or bullied during 30 days prior to the survey, whereas 25.1 percent were threatened or injured with a weapon during 30 days prior to the survey.

She said there is need to strictly address bullying in schools to produce responsible citizens and to promote mental and physical health, noting that reduction in bullying and anti-social behaviour in the community will develop a caring community.

Ms Sebina noted that frequency of bullying in schools contributed to a fearful environment and often victims of bullying respond with avoidance behaviour such as truancy, adding that students who bullied others were at a risk of developing violent tendencies and lacked respect for law and authority.

She said in their study, they found out that teachers were aware of only a fraction of bullying going on in their class rooms.

Also, she said parents often do not know if their children bully others or are being bullied and urged them to talk to their children about what is happening at school and they should be able to recognise change in the behaviour of their children.

Ms Sebina recommended that policy guidelines in schools should be confined to dealing with bullying behaviour and should list and define the offences clearly and layout procedures for dealing with bullying behaviour.

She said as school heads, monitoring bullying behaviours was essential for designing prevention programmes. ENDS