Culture & Education | Friday 23 January, 2015 12:57 am |

The Ministry of Education has been researching the problem of violence and bullying among students in public schools to determine reasons and ways of taking action to stop it.
A committee formed by the ministry has been working on a plan to reduce and combat the rising levels of violence among school children. The committee has been working in partnership with a number of authorities, including the National Commission for Children, the National Program of Family Safety and UNICEF.

Measures include intensifying supervision, issuing warnings to students about responding to such behavior, and framing bullying as an anti-moral and anti-religious act. It has also been determined as a behavioral violation, resulting in the deduction of 10 points from school scores.

Wafa Al-Saleh of the National Commission for Children said that the national project for the prevention of bullying involves researching the extent of the problem in the Kingdom, determining types of violence, exploring causes and defining school responses. It also involves evaluating the perception and attitudes of parents toward the issue and its impact on children, she said.

Al-Saleh said they are currently working on the preparation of training manuals to deal with violence in schools and developing educational materials about its harmful effects. Ministry officials, as well as teachers, school managers and assistants will be involved in the training efforts.