Adults not enough informed about bullying in Norwegian schools

The latest student survey showed that 40 percent of pupils who have experienced bullying in Norwegian schools said adults did not know about it, newspaper Aftenposten reported Tuesday.

In addition, 16 percent of the interviewed students who have experienced bullying said adults knew about the bullying but did nothing.

About 6.3 percent, or over 27,000 students, of the 433,000 people who responded to the survey said they were bullied two to three times a month or more. This includes students who were bullied by peers, adults at school, or were experiencing digital bullying by classmates.

Taking into account all 819,000 pupils in primary and secondary schools, about 51,600 students regularly experience bullying in Norwegian schools, according to the report.

"It is very serious that children are being bullied and that this is not revealed. Adults in schools and kindergartens must be better at detecting bullying," said Torbjorn Roe Isaksen, Norwegian minister of education and research.

"In the budget for 2017, the government prepared extra money for competence-raising measures, so that adults in schools and kindergartens will have the opportunity to learn more about how they could reveal bullying," he said.

"Bullying is terrible for those who are exposed to it, and is a serious social problem. We will therefore legislate what schools should do when children are bullied, and give fines to municipalities that do not follow up. No one should be able to turn away and refuse to intervene," Isaksen said.

In its work on a new bullying policy, the government will introduce an activity requirement for schools, which in practice means that the school should act quickly and effectively. There will be a stringent requirement to act in cases where school staff are the ones bullying pupils. 

source: Xinhua