The launch of the national campaign against school bullying was announced from Thessaloniki by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakiswho visited the Polichni 3rd High School and discussed the problem with students and teachers, while the Minister of Education, Kyriakos Pierrakakispresented the measures to deal with bullying.

The debate was moderated by the Deputy Minister of Education, Zetta Makri, while the President of the Onassis Foundation, Antonis Papadimitriou, also spoke.

After a related video about domestic violence was initially presented, o Kyriakos Pierrakakis taking the floor said that “This is an awareness campaign. This particular spot doesn’t make things pretty, it’s too harsh”

Regarding the rates of school violence, Mr. Pierrakakis stated that Greece is above the average of OECD countriesbut there is progress in terms of the number of children who have experienced incidents. On the contrary, the intensity of incidents has increased.

The campaign presented aims not only to provide a story, but to be a platform for everyone to tell their own story.to share an experience, pointed out the Minister of Education.

The operation of the platform stop-bullying.gov.gr

Then Mr. Pierrakakis spoke in the operation of the stop-bullying.gov.gr platform which has, as he said, incident recording and incident management systems from schools. It also has informative material.

The platform includes the type of school violence one has experiencede.g. physical, psychological.

According to Mr. Pierrakakis once an incident is reported, it is handled by the schoolbut depending on the seriousness there is a 4-member committee of experts at the secondary education directorate while there is also a committee of experts in the Ministry of Education.

Also, announced a further increase in the number of psychologists who have already increased from 2,000 to 4,000while he described the training that will follow in the coming months for the teachers.

Mr. Pierrakakis referred to the actions within the school. As he said, we have been joining since September Active Citizen actions from Kindergartens to the first High School. The goal, as he said, is for this to be done one hour a week throughout the school year.

“Parents have already received their children’s registration number electronically through myschool, so as to identify the students making the complaint” he said.

“The school will be responsible for processing complaints at the first level” underlined the minister.

Digitization of absences

At the same time, he emphasized that the absences are digitized. An e-parents application will be made available to parents where they can directly see the student’s progress, absences etc. through the data that are registered in myschool. The deletion of absences will be prohibited at the end of the year with express exceptions such as medical reasons. The measure will be implemented since Septemberas he said.

Specifically, the 114 absences will not be unexcused. Parents can justify up to 2 days, for more a medical opinion is required.

Return of 5-day suspension

Furthermore, Mr. Pierrakakis mentioned that the possibility of suspending the student for up to five days is reinstated. The teachers’ association will be able to proceed more easily with a change of department and the bureaucracy for changing the school environment will be reduced

If someone commits damage, willful vandalism. Tits cost will be borne by the perpetrator’s familythe minister pointed out.

For mobile phones

As for her mobile phone use of telephones in schools, Mr. Pierrakakis noted that their use goes together with the most serious incidents of bullying. That is why consequences are defined such as the club can impose a 5-day suspension for documenting an incident of school violence. In case of leakage of personal data about children’s private moments on the internet then there will be a change in the school environment.

Mitsotakis: We are troubled today by the intensity and violence of the incidents

Then Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis took the floor who then he took questions from the children themselves.

“There were also bullying phenomena in our era, but we were not concerned about the trauma it could leave on a child” said the Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

“We are troubled by tension and violence today. Violence is not only physical, it is psychological, online” pointed out and emphasized that “it is a problem that concerns all institutions”.

“It is not easy to talk about the abuser. It is not easily accepted to talk about the abuser but it is necessary. The online platform enables us to get to know the incident. It gives us the possibility of anonymity and through tools that exist to manage the incidents”.

When the complaint is made we must be efficientthe prime minister emphasized and underlined how the silence must be broken.

“It is a comprehensive plan which, first of all, does not hesitate to speak openly about the problem. We can’t sweep it under the rug. Exists. It concerns all of us, not only the state. It concerns all the institutions, it concerns the church, it concerns the parents, the parents’ associations. We must first recognize it and then present an overall plan”said Mr. Mitsotakis.

The Prime Minister emphasized that behind bullying is the intolerance of diversity and referring to the protocol for dealing with it he remarked: “The word protocols is a bit abused lately. But protocols are nothing more than specific procedures by which experts tell us what to do if this incident occurs.

I want to ask everyone to really break this silence. And the silence is not just about the victim. It also applies to observers. It’s not magic, neither to beat the other person to the wood, nor to scold him in public for any choices he may make. To be able to pass this on to the school community, where an incident takes place, to say “sit down, what are you doing over here”, so that the perpetrator feels that he is effectively isolated. This is the first step in addressing the problem.”

Receiving questions afterwards, Kyriakos Mitsotakis was asked by students if he himself has been a victim of bullying.

As he said when he saw his video some incidents from that period came to mind.

“They used to throw my bag out the window too. I didn’t see anything that was unusual or foreign to me. They were more or less havales back then. Back then we didn’t pay attention to these phenomena, they were part of school life. And this may not have affected me particularly, but there were our classmates who suffered,” said the Prime Minister.

He did not emphasize how it is important to whom we entrust these matters.

Asked how they made the decision to create the platform, Mr. Mitsotakis said that the platform offers better monitoring of bullying incidents, said the Prime Minister. “What is the incident, who is responsible” and emphasized that under no circumstances should a complaint be made and then be lost.

To the question about whether his children were victims of bullying, the prime minister replied that the fact that their father was already known and by its very nature creates targeting. But as he said “the kids were comfortable discussing it with us, it was relatively mild incidents.”

Finally, focusing on the issue of mobile phones, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that “We didn’t have cell phones. We were without a computer. But there is a big issue among young people with the excessive use of the mobile phone, with the dependence on the mobile phone”. In fact, he emphasized that we should be concerned about the arrival of Artificial Intelligence.

“It’s a tool but it shouldn’t dominate our lives. We need to put restrictions on the way mobile phones are used at school” he emphasized.