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School bullies becoming bolder, brainier: Lily Neo
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| Ho Ai Li |
Tue, Jan 22, 2008
The Straits Times
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WATCHING an online video of an assault on a 13-year-old girl, Dr Lily Neo felt overcome by nausea. The girl was punched and stripped by other girls, and the attack was recorded and later circulated on the Internet. Relating this in Parliament yesterday, the Jalan Besar GRC MP wanted to make the point that bullying in schools is a serious problem which the Ministry of Education (MOE) should do more to address. She cited surveys, such as the one done by the Coalition against Bullying for Children and Youth (Cabcy), which found that 94.7 per cent of 4,000 students polled had been bullied. | The school bully has not only been 'working overtime', but is also becoming 'bolder and brainier', she said.Dr Neo, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Education, said bullying has led to a suicide and a significant number of hospitalisations. To tackle the problem, she suggested that the MOE train teachers to deal with bullying as well as provide more information on the issue. The ministry could consider implementing anti-bullying policies and work more closely with groups such as the Singapore Children's Society (SCS), which runs anti-bullying programmes. She concluded: 'MOE should sweep away the years of inaction which have caused pain and anguish to both students and parents.' In response, Minister of State for Education Lui Tuck Yew said his ministry took a serious view of bullying. While he agrees more could be done in areas such as training teachers to handle bullying, he said statistics vary and could be 'an issue of contention'. Figures vary depending on definitions of bullying, for example. The 2006 MOE figure of 3.7 per cent per 1,000 students is collated from reported school offences of those bullying cases that involved hurting, frightening or intimidating others. Other surveys define bullying more broadly, he said. But the ministry's internal surveys have shown that the extent of bullying is not as high as the almost 95 per cent figure reported by Cabcy. Rather, it is somewhere between 20 and 30 per cent, he said, closer to surveys by the SCS and Health Promotion Board which put the figure at between 21 and 32 per cent.
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