Bullying incident: report calls on school authorities to be more vigilant

A report submitted in connection with the alleged bullying of upper primary students by their seniors at Government Higher Secondary School for Girls, Cotton Hill, here has found that despite reports of harassment of students, including causing injury using a blade and a number of students sustaining injuries, that were doing the rounds in social media, no teacher or student has testified that such incidents had occurred.  

These incidents were hearsay, the report found. It, however, emphasised the need for teachers and school authorities to be more vigilant considering that more than 2,500 children studied at the school.

Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty had entrusted the Deputy Director of Education (DDE), Thiruvananthapuram, with the inquiry following a complaint of bullying of Class 5 students and media reports. Accordingly, the DDE and the District Education Officer visited the school and spoke to students, parents, teachers and non-teaching staff. They also went through reports on the incident and video and voice clips shared on social media.

The officials found that the school authorities took the injured children to every class to identify the children responsible for the bullying, went through each part of the school compound and spoke to each child who could be a suspect. Two children from the higher secondary section had come to school in casual wear that day. However, the younger children denied that they were the ones who had harassed them.

No outsiders

No truth was found in social media reports that girls in casual wear had scaled the school compound wall to enter inside, bully other students, and escape. The compound walls were found to be too tall for students to scale them. School authorities, including teachers, had impressed upon the officials that no instance of substance abuse had occurred in the school.

The headmasters were asked to entrust teachers and security staff with responsibility of keeping an eye on all corners of the school at all times.

Directions were given to maintain registers to record details of all people, except students and teachers, who reached the school, the reasons for their visit, and entry and departure time.

Form PTA

Steps should also be taken to form a parent-teacher association (PTA) as soon as the Plus-One admissions were over. Services of counsellors should be made available to remove any fear in the minds of students or parents. Students should be provided with psychological support.

The students responsible should be identified and corrected. At the same time, any baseless reports should be countered.

The school authorities have submitted a complaint in this connection to the District Police Chief (Thiruvananthapuram City), a statement from the office of the Minister said.