KUALA LUMPUR: Understaffed public schools can lead to a situation where bullying goes unchecked, an NGO that advocates for women empowerment warned.
WOMEN:girls executive director Izza Izelan said public school teachers were usually too occupied with their workload to investigate incidents of bullying.
“There are a large number of students in each classroom, so it is almost impossible for teachers to maintain a peaceful environment.
“On top of that, teachers are also rushing to do a lot of administrative work, their lesson plans and extracurricular activities,” she said at a press conference regarding anti-bullying.
Izza said due to this workload, teachers had a “blindspot” and would often only find out about bullying after it was too late.
In 2023, the education ministry recorded a total of 4,994 school bullying cases in the first 10 months of the year, an increase from the 3,887 cases reported in 2022.
While she admitted that there was no way to totally prevent bullying, Izza highlighted the need for the authorities and the public to come together to support victims and “be a voice for the voiceless”.
Echoing Izza’s sentiment, Abdullah Nishad, an advocacy and outreach officer at Kryss Network, said bullying could not be accepted as a cultural norm.
Due to the prevalence of social media today, Nishad said, students could no longer find refuge even in their own homes as online platforms had become “new arenas” for cyberbullies.
“We must establish clear and accessible channels for students to report bullying incidents safely and anonymously,” Nishad said when speaking about how a robust support system should be set up so that such incidents could be properly addressed.
