Bullying: Education ministry’s big time failure

 

Bullying is in the news again. A medical houseman at the Penang General Hospital fell to his death on April 17, just three weeks after being posted to the hospital, and a heated debate is in progress as to whether overwork and bullying might have triggered his death.

In Langkawi, police arrested 13 Form Four students on April 28 following a report lodged by their schoolmate, also in Form Four, that he had been assaulted. A video clip of the assault went viral.

Here I wish to talk about school bullying which continues to be a problem despite decades of attempts by the authorities to halt it.

Although most Malaysians know that bullying occurs in schools, many who saw the video clip of the April 27 bullying incident at a Langkawi secondary school found it worrying.

Last Dec 14, it was reported that Maktab Rendah Sains Mara Sultan Azlan Shah (MRSM), Kuala Kangsar, had expelled 10 students for bullying a fellow student. This too came to the knowledge of the public after several video clips showing a student being punched and kicked by a group of boys circulated on social media.

On Dec 16 last year, police remanded five 16-year-old boys for allegedly bullying a 14-year-old secondary school student in Muar on Dec 9. The boy suffered injuries to his left ribs and received treatment at a hospital.

Another video clip that went viral resulted in the arrest of ten students of a tahfiz school in Pasir Puteh, Kelantan on Nov 21, 2019, for bullying a 14-year-old classmate. I did an online search but could not find any report on whether the ten students were charged in court, or what happened to the case.

It was reported on Aug 17, 2017 that police had sent investigation papers regarding the assault on three students by 26 other students at a vocational school in Kuala Nerus, Terengganu. Again, I was unable to find any report online about the fate of the 26 students.

According to the 2017 Adolescent Health Survey by the health ministry, 16.2% of the country’s teenagers were involved in bullying. I suspect the current figure could be higher. We have to remember that many bullying cases go unreported and what we hear of are only the incidents that have made the news due to viral video clips or death and injury.

Most disturbing is that some students have died due to bullying. For instance, a student of SMK Bandar Rinching died after drinking pesticide in February 2014 because he could not take the bullying by fellow students. Form One student T Kavinraj, had reported the bullying to his teachers and family but finally, perhaps in a fit of frustration, took his own life.

Most Malaysians will remember the death of navy cadet Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain from injuries after being bullied at the National Defence University (UPNM) on May 22, 2017. On Nov 2, 2021, the High Court sentenced six UPNM students to 18 years’ jail for causing the death of Zulfarhan. It also sentenced 12 others to three years in jail for assaulting Zulfarhan to force him to confess to stealing a laptop.

The thing is, the education ministry cannot be accused of not doing anything. It has tried, or had plans to try, various measures over the years.

For instance, education minister Radzi Jidin told the Dewan Rakyat on Dec 14, 2021 that the ministry had drawn up a comprehensive framework to address bullying with a focus on awareness, reporting, sentencing and monitoring.

The ministry, he had said, would introduce the Sekolahku Sejahtera concept to cultivate values of life among school children through curricular and co-curricular activities, establish a reporting channel for bullying from the schools to the ministry, spell out punishments for bullying and get school heads, teachers and wardens to better monitor student activities.

Some of the measures sound similar to recommendations made by a group of 40 secondary school students aged between 13 and 16 after discussing the issue of bullying in November 2019.

The group’s recommendations to the ministry then were: provide support for the victim; create a comprehensive and holistic reporting system for the victim and witnesses; carry out a thorough investigation; introduce a holistic programme for bullies; update the guideline to prevent and address bullying cases in schools; and create a code of ethics for teachers and students who will then sign letters of undertaking against bullying every year.

Radzi also warned of action against school headmasters who try to hide cases of bullying to “protect” the image of their schools. He called on school heads to cooperate.

The same call was made by then deputy education minister Teo Nie Ching on Nov 20, 2019, at the gathering of 40 students mentioned above. She regretted that some schools were not reporting instances of bullying to protect their image.

More than two decades earlier, in June 1997, then deputy education minister Fong Chan Onn warned that school heads who tried to hide cases of indiscipline and who did not cooperate with police in curbing violence and criminal activities in school would face “stern disciplinary action”.

It appears that all these warnings have not worked.

In fact, then education minister Najib Razak told the Dewan Rakyat in May 1997 that almost 4,000 students had been expelled from schools between 1992 and 1996 for various cases of indiscipline.

Najib said among the measures taken to arrest the situation were: educating students on how to evaluate positive and negative elements, regular counselling for problematic students; making it compulsory for students to take part in cocurricular activities; allowing schools to take stern action against students who create serious problems; and conducting motivational courses for potentially high-risk groups.

It appears that none of these measures have worked.

The education ministry said in 2000, that as at March 15 that year, a total of 687 of the 1,417 secondary schools in the country had established crime prevention clubs, with 42,787 students as members. Are these clubs still in existence?

In the 1990s, working with the police, the ministry introduced police liaison officers in some schools to check indiscipline, including drug addiction.

It appears that the establishment of crime prevention clubs and cooperation with police too has not worked.

In 2017, we heard that the education ministry was to work with the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development on a pilot project to address indiscipline, including bullying and gangsterism, in schools.

On Nov 2, 2017, then education minister Mahdzir Khalid said five schools would be selected for the pilot project under the auspices of the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).

“Through the programme, students will be trained to develop competencies of critical inquiry, empathy, compassion, and mindfulness aimed at addressing violent behaviour.”

Does anyone know what happened to this project?

Earlier, in June, Mahdzir had spoken about introducing a training module for all teachers to handle both physical and cyber bullying. “We might also consider introducing a standard operating procedure for all schools in dealing with bullying cases,” he said.

I don’t have a clue as to whether this was implemented.

The education ministry launched a “zero defect” policy – aimed at eliminating indiscipline in all forms in the school and reducing administrative mistakes and delays – on April 9, 1993.

Your guess is as good as mine as to what happened to it. But it appears that there is zero or near zero improvement in the situation today, especially when it comes to bullying.

The ministry also had a “Clean Year 1994” programme under which it planned to curb indiscipline within a year. How ambitious!

In the eighties too, various statements were made and measures introduced to tackle the problem of student indiscipline.

As can be seen, the education ministry has proposed and enforced many measures to tackle indiscipline, including bullying, over the last five decades. Campaigns, spot checks, hotlines, crime-prevention clubs, police monitoring, moral studies, Islamic studies, fines for misbehaviour, and threats of expulsion have been tried. Even school counsellors have been employed in the battle against bullying.

It appears that– despite the man-hours poured into it, despite the money spent, despite the energy expended – little or nothing has been achieved.

Obviously, the education ministry has failed big time, although it may not be for want of trying. Perhaps education officials have not tried hard enough to implement their plans.

One thing I have noticed over the years is that school administrators tend to bury or play down bullying and other acts of indiscipline. It’s not so much to protect the image of the school as to protect their name and prospects of promotion.

I have also noticed that each new education minister and each new director-general has his or her own priorities. They want to stamp their mark and so push agendas or projects that are different from those of their predecessors. Therefore, there is no continuity even for workable programmes.- FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.