More funding for manpower, easier reporting channels to tackle school bullying

The management of bullying – including cyber-related incidents – will be strengthened with clearer guidelines on how schools should handle cases. 

These include expectations around communication timelines with parents, safety planning for students, disciplinary actions, counselling and restorative processes to ensure cases are addressed in a timely and consistent manner.

The ministry also highlighted the complexities schools face when managing cases involving multiple perspectives.

Usually, the first reaction of parents who have children who may have been bullied is to protect their child and call the perpetrator’s parents, MOE said. But parents may only see one side of an incident, while schools need time to gather accounts from all parties to establish a fuller picture before taking action.

While there are no fixed guidelines on how quickly schools must contact parents after an incident, schools recognise that timely communication is crucial, the ministry said.

On cases that surface on social media, MOE cautioned that a single perspective put up online may not represent the truth about how the school handled the incident.

“We are prepared to share what are the things that have been done in order for us to be fair to the educators as well as some of the other parties that have allegations made against them,” said the ministry.