Ministry of Education: What does the bill for the Prevention and Dealing with Intra-School Violence and School Bullying provide for?

The Ministry of Education aims to expand and deepen the actions to deal with the phenomenon of Intra-School Violence and School Bullying, with the introduction of a special, targeted bill to promote positive patterns of relationships within the school community.

Although, so far, it has not been known when the draft law in question will be put up for consultation, given the political situation – it was scheduled to be presented to the Council of Ministers on Friday, which was postponed -, however circles in the ministry underline the importance of the legislative of this initiative for school and non-school life.

The three main points of the bill

The bill for the Prevention and Dealing with Intra-School Violence and School Bullying, through the program “We Live Harmoniously TOGETHER, Break the Silence!”, deepens the actions already developed by the Ministry of Education at various levels.

Indicatively, we can mention: the doubling of the number of psychologists and social workers serving in schools, the institution of a School Life Counselor in every secondary school unit, the strengthening of supporting bodies – such as the Interdisciplinary Assessment, Counseling and Support Centers (KEDASY) – with an increase of the overall budget, the cooperation with competent agencies for targeted interventions in schools, the introduction of Skills Workshops in the compulsory timetable from Kindergarten to High School and the programs “Bullying Diaries” (for High School students) and “School Mediation: Prevention and Solving School Violence” (for students from 6th grade and above), the training of over 125,000 teachers on relevant topics, as well as the 166 New Curricula and the new school textbooks that will accompany them cultivate the spirit against violence and of the distinctions (e.g. through the texts in the lessons of Gl ossa and Literature).

The Program “We Live Harmoniously TOGETHER, We Break the Silence!” complements the above actions and at the same time constitutes, according to circles of the Ministry of Education, “a multifactorial, organized and specialized response of the Ministry of Education and Culture to phenomena of intra-school violence and intimidation”.

According to an unofficial information from the ministry, the program is aimed at students, parents, teachers, and education officials, with the aim of preventing, dealing with and protecting children and teenagers from all forms of violence and school bullying and the creation of safe, inclusive and healthy schools communities and educational environments capable of promoting the harmonious psychosocial development and progress of all students and learners. The program is financed through national funds allocated by the Ministry of Health.

As part of the program, according to an unofficial information from the Ministry of Education:

1. Action groups are created to deal with school violence.

At school unit level, the Principal together with a teacher designated by him (in Primary Education) or the School Life Counselor (in Secondary Education) will be Responsible for Addressing School Violence and Bullying and will act as a point of reference and information on school issues of bullying, they will implement educational actions and awareness programs in their school unit and will deal with incidents of intra-school violence and bullying, in direct communication with the four-member Action Group of the Directorate to which they belong.

At the Education Directorate level, four-member Action Teams will operate, consisting of the Education Director, an Education Consultant, a psychologist and a social worker to oversee the program at the local level. The Action Teams will prepare annual reports with their observations and conclusions on the incidents of intra-school violence that have taken place together with their proposals, and submit them to the Regional Director of Education who will regularly inform the Ministry of Education and Culture, ensuring the formulation of future policy against on data-driven school violence.

At the central level, an expert committee will be set up with the responsibility of overseeing and overseeing the programme, as well as drawing relevant conclusions. The committee will undertake the development of special protocols for the prevention and handling of intra-school violence and bullying. In this way, the scientific integrity of the program is achieved.

Finally, the bill provides for the institutional recognition of the possibility of cooperation between agencies and structures active against intra-school violence and bullying.

2. A platform is being developed for reporting incidents of violence with the possibility of ANONYMOUS reporting.

The platform has been developed by the Institute of Computer Technology and Publications (ITIE) DIOFANTOS in collaboration with the central committee of experts. In it, students will be able to report incidents by completing the specially designed incident report form ANONYMOUSLY or by name, while parents will be able to report incidents by name. This will enable more victims of school bullying to speak up and be supported. It will be required to log in with Panhellenic School Network (for students) or Taxis (for parents) codes.

The platform will also contain incident management protocols, good practices, as well as targeted informational material to inform the educational community, parents and the wider public, thus acting as a central digital hub of the Ministry of Education against intra-school violence and bullying.

The report will be sent to:

– Action Group where the recipients of the reports will be the School Violence and Bullying Officers of the relevant school unit who will be able to deal with these incidents immediately,

– Action Group of the competent Directorate of Education.

In the event that the issue cannot be resolved at school level, the school action team resorts to the competent team of the Directorate of Education for support.

Finally, the petitioner will be given the opportunity to monitor the progress of his petition through the specially configured platform.

3. Systematic teacher trainings.

The Institute of Educational Policy (IEP) will develop new and enriched material for teacher training. The immediate goal is the training of the Action Teams of the Education Directorates and the School Violence and Bullying Officers of the school units within the first year of operation of the program.

School Violence and Bullying in Greece and abroad

Some of the data recorded on the phenomenon demonstrate the importance of targeted actions as early as the first school grades.

According to a Nationwide survey conducted on the Child’s Smile (2022), the main reasons young people (16-20 years old) give for triggering bullying are diversity, specifically different ethnicity (85%), sexual identity (82%) and mental ability (82%).

Also, according to the same survey, only 40% of those who were bullied as a child sought help, with parents being the first choice for 18%, and teachers for 6%.

Verbal attack and emotional blackmail are the first associations of the term “bullying” for 8 out of 10 Greeks.

In addition, according to the National Survey of the Hellenic Safe Internet Center of ITE on online habits (2021-2022), only 35% of children who were victims of cyberbullying turned to an adult for help, .

At the international level, according to UNESCO data on the subject:

Globally, 1 in 3 students have been a victim of school bullying by peers in the last month. In Europe in particular, the ratio is 1 in 4 students.

Globally, the percentage of students experiencing school violence decreases with age, with the highest percentages however being recorded between 10-15 years of age.

Only in 5 countries has the percentage of students who are victims of school bullying and physical violence decreased.

Between 2015 and 2018, there was a 4% increase in children being bullied at school, on average across OECD countries.

Finally, according to WHO data, boys tend to bully others more than girls, with around 1 in 12 boys (8%) saying they had bullied others at least 2-3 times in the past two months, compared to 1 in 20 girls (5%).

RES-EMP

Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.