IN FOCUS: Can more be done to deal with bullies in Singapore schools?

SINGAPORE: It began with being ostracised, escalated to dropping out of school and came to a head when she was blackmailed into having sex.
The first signs appeared when Leah, who asked to use a pseudonym, was in Secondary 2 and part of a “squad” of about five students in their girls’ school.
But she was the odd one out; unable to relate and feeling excluded from conversations.
At that point, it had been a year since she was formally diagnosed with depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD – and made the mistake of confiding this to the group.
They promptly shunned her, spread word of her mental health struggles and shamed her for also harming herself. When confronted, they told her she was “too different” for their liking.
“At that time, it felt really cruel,” said Leah, now 22. “I was upset and I did feel betrayed.”
Pushed to the brink, she decided to drop out and enrol in a private institution to take her O-Levels.
But the girls weren’t done, with one of them threatening to tell Leah’s parents about her mental health issues unless she slept with the girl’s ex-boyfriend.
While perhaps less visible, Leah’s case was no less insidious than a spate of physical and visceral bullying instances that have surfaced in recent weeks. 
In September, a video of a Bukit View Secondary School pupil being taunted and kicked to the ground made online rounds, prompting police investigations.
A week later, an online clip of a Qihua Primary School student being assaulted by an older boy led to the arrest of five teenagers.
And earlier in October, a Meridian Secondary School pupil reportedly ruptured her right eardrum after being attacked by schoolmates.
According to the Ministry of Education (MOE) the average number of bullying incidents has remained “steady” in the last five years.
For every 1,000 students, there were an average of two incidents in primary schools and six incidents in secondary schools annually, for any form of bullying and both inside and outside school. 
Yet questions have since been raised, including by lawmakers, on whether schools and teachers are sufficiently equipped today to deal with bullying. If the answer is no, is it time then for other authorities such as the courts and the police to play a bigger role? And how do parents fit into the process?
While there may be policies and interventions in schools, bullying these days extends beyond the school to include the virtual environment, chairperson of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Education Patrick Tay told CNA. 
There are more situations where educators are unable to handle bullying and may even “put themselves at risk to threats and harms”, said Mr Tay, who’s Member of Parliament for Pioneer.
“It is therefore imperative that educators are not just equipped to handle such scenarios, but that law enforcement and other community services agencies beef up their capabilities to work with schools and the community, to combat egregious bullying behaviours and the bullies themselves who may be facing issues beyond the school environment.”
The parents and victims in this article asked to either be anonymous or use aliases as they didn’t want to be identified through the specifics of their cases.
The names of the teachers and school staff members have also been changed as they’re not authorised to speak to the media.
The issue of bullying, in light of the recent high-profile incidents, was discussed in parliament earlier this month.
In response to a series of questions by MPs, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing highlighted how teachers are trained to proactively deal with bullying as well as recognising students in distress.
“All pre-service teachers receive this training, and new teachers are supported by experienced staff and school counsellors. In-service teachers also receive refresher training as part of their professional development,” he said.
Nonetheless, on platforms like Reddit, some parents of bullied children can be found airing frustrations over a perceived lack of action from schools and teachers.
Some even claimed to have signed their kids up for self-defence lessons to ward off bullies.
CNA spoke to some parents who felt their child’s teacher could have done more, either to deal with known cases of bullying or creating an environment where students feel they can report what is happening to them.
In the case of primary school student Benjamin (not his real name), he didn’t want teachers, particularly his form teacher, to know he was being bullied. That’s because he feared being put in the spotlight – but also because he didn’t think they’d handle it well, according to his mother.
Benjamin was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease at four years old. It requires him to be on steroids, which made him put on weight and led to peers laughing at him and calling him “fat” and “ugly”.
In Primary 4, he became the target of slurs and vulgarities in a WhatsApp group chat with classmates. His mother stepped in, leaving a voice message in the chat to ask why they were doing this to her son. It didn’t change anything.
When visible scars appeared on his body as a result of his illness, Benjamin was told he was “weird-looking” and the word “disgusting” was thrown around.
His mother described his form teacher as not someone willing to listen to what a child has to say, which was a barrier to him reporting the bullies.
“When you always cut a child off, he will probably not want to come to you with his problems,” she said.
In response to a question in parliament about whether there will be more channels for reporting of bullying, Minister Chan said “we want to give people and students the confidence that if you are in doubt, where you feel troubled, you should be able to use the existing channels to report it to the adults and then have the adults work with the students to see how they can mend the relationships and move the relationships forward”.
When Leah dropped out of the school, she didn’t tell anyone it was due to bullying.
Her form teacher just “stood on the sidelines” and never asked about her reasons for leaving, she said.
Leah’s mother told CNA that a conversation with the teacher revealed she was aware of the bullying but thought the students would “sort it out themselves”.
She, too, said that teachers cannot be expected to do it all.
“But in this case, if it’s happening in front of your eyes, you need to not just stand there and observe. You need to do something.”
Schools have rules to prohibit any form of bullying, Minister Chan said during the parliamentary sitting earlier this month. 
Most cases within school grounds are dealt with by teachers, while more serious ones go to counsellors.
While training to deal with bullying is provided, some teachers told CNA it leans towards the theoretical – for example, listing actions that teachers can take in certain situations.
In real life, however, there are myriad issues to consider such as the environment a child grows up in and the influence of peers and parents.
In addition, the training can only go so far and teachers need to go beyond what the sessions cover.
“The course that we were put through is pretty much at the surface level,” said Madam Han, who has taught in primary schools for 13 years. “It requires an educator to really take interest and read up more to equip (themselves) even better.”
It also boils down to being more alert and sensitive to class dynamics; and forming the sort of relationships with students that make them comfortable enough to open up and seek guidance if bullied.
Cultivating such rapport with students, again, depends on individual teachers, said Mdm Han.
Some educators may question why they’re “wasting time” on such things instead of focusing on completing the syllabus and, well, teaching.
“If this is the belief of the teacher, then naturally, the teacher would not want to spend her energy, effort, her time on issues that concern bullying,” she said.
“My personal belief is that we need to spend time on this in order to save time later.”
Then there are teachers who remain “very deep-rooted” in so-called traditional beliefs, said Mdm Han. 
“(They may think) for things like that, you just have to suck it up. You just have to ‘man’ up. You just have to be resilient.”
The founder of the non-profit Coalition Against Bullying for Children & Youth (CABCY) Esther Ng said schools have been more evident in efforts to advocate against bullying over the years.
Yet bullying can still recur in subtler forms – such as being ostracised – and still overwhelm victims, said the psychotherapist by profession.
When a bullying incident escalates, the standard operating procedure or SOP in some schools involves informing discipline teachers and parents of the students involved. 
Investigations will be conducted and if the school finds evidence of bullying, a decision will be made on next steps. 
These can include counselling and using conflict resolution tools such as restorative practice to try and repair the harm done.
Caning, as a form of corporal punishment in schools, is also allowed by law. But it cannot be administered to girls, and is usually done as a last resort and carried out by authorised adults only.
Secondary school counsellor Lucas highlighted that caning the perpetrators may not necessarily stop them from misbehaving. 
“They will just say that this is already the harshest punishment, so the school cannot put anything on me anymore. These students are already very bold so sometimes they are not even afraid of caning,” he added. 
At the same time, using corporal punishment can lead to teachers having to answer to unhappy parents – who may then blow up the matter on social media or even threaten legal action, said secondary school teacher Peter. 
“Parents will challenge the punishments, the consequences that we have decided for their children. Sometimes they make it quite difficult for us to carry them out.”
They might be unaware that in doing such things, they are teaching their own children to disregard authority, he added. “(That) even though there’s a punishment given, if you are able to kick up a big fuss and be able to resist that, you might actually get away with things.”
Eventually, if it puts the school in a negative enough light, management may choose to pull back or “tone down” on actions taken against students, he added.
In this way, schools are stripped of power and autonomy when it comes to handling bullying, said Peter.
Parental support was highlighted by Minister Chan in parliament, who said that efforts are made to help students learn from their mistakes, rather than simply expelling them or suspending them from school.
“When relationships are affected due to conflicts or misconduct, schools and institutions take steps to educate, discipline and restore relationships in the school community, and these efforts require parents’ support and partnership,” he said.
David was bullied before he became a bully.
When in Primary 5, his classmates called him “fat” in Mandarin, and he was initially clueless since he wasn’t Chinese.
The experience “subconsciously” put an idea in his head: That “oh, this is how to bully people”, said David, who only wanted to be known by his first name. 
When he entered secondary school, he started making fun of other students, including by teasing a boy who was passionate about nature and sustainability while selectively ignoring and mocking a girl he was otherwise friends with in private.
“I knew she was looking for friends and I kind of took advantage of that because I knew that she didn’t have a very high social ranking in class,” said David.
He said he “indirectly” caused the boy, as well as another student, to transfer out of the school.
Speaking on CNA’s Deep Dive podcast, Dr Cheung Hoi Shan, assistant professor at the National Institute of Education, said bullying behaviour makes sense “from an evolutionary perspective”.
“Because if you think about it, it’s really trying to get as much resources as you can. And how do you go about doing this? (It’s) to elevate your own social status, your own power, and then just get as much as you can,” she added. 
“If you show yourself to be a socially unlikable person, it can also backfire in terms of your own survival and adaptiveness.”
This was exactly the case for David, who recalled other students wanting to stand up for the victims but eventually joining in the bullying as they didn’t want to be ostracised. 
In the Bukit View and Qihua incidents, the bullies likely felt more powerful as the number of bystanders increased, said CABCY’s Ms Ng.
Her coalition was established in 2005 with the aim of providing effective measures to prevent and intervene in bullying.
Eventually, it did dawn on David that he wasn’t doing a good thing.
“I had a moment in Secondary 3 that if something is not right, I shouldn’t just follow what everyone else is doing. Just because everyone is doing it, doesn’t mean it’s correct,” he said. “At the end of the day, we (are) just hurting people.”
For bullying incidents that take place in public areas – such as in the Bukit View Secondary and Qihua Primary cases – the schools need to intervene if the students involved are in their uniforms, teachers told CNA. 
For example, if a victim wants to make a police report, the school will share the necessary information with authorities.
But for violent situations in particular, the school might seek help from the police in the first instance, said secondary school counsellor Emily.
“We are not law enforcers. We can go out to observe, but we cannot go there to stop the other people who are not our students. 
“When there’s a fight going on … we don’t know how helpful we will be. So most of the time, we call the police to settle.” 
Parents CNA spoke to highlighted the importance of having laws that kick in and impose penalties should schools be unable to manage bullying cases, especially serious ones.
In Singapore, the Protection from Harassment Act (POHA) provides criminal and civil remedies against harassment.
Victims of school bullying can be protected under the Act, which states that intentionally causing harassment, alarm or distress to another person is an offence, lawyers said. There’s also no stipulation that the victim has to be of a minimum age. 
Two lawyers CNA spoke to said they haven’t come across school bullying cases often. But Ms Gloria James-Civetta’s eponymous legal firm has received enquiries on what to do in bullying situations.
Lawyers there have also been approached by parents wishing to obtain a protection order against another student.
“Our initial advice is typically first to alert the bully’s parents and the school, to try and get the matter settled there before escalating the matter to the police or to court, perhaps through teachers or counsellors,” said Ms James-Civetta.  
This is because while the matter may be resolved, the children will continue seeing each other in school. “There is a danger that the bullying persists and perhaps escalates,” she added.
In such a situation, a cease and desist letter can be sent to the bully’s parents to alert them and demand that the perpetrator stops.
Ms Bestlyn Loo, a counsel at Providence Law Asia, cautioned that when the law gets involved in school bullying, minors end up being introduced to the harsh criminal justice system. 
It may be more helpful to have anti-bullying legislation that requires all schools to have a standardised set of policies, procedures and penalties for violence, she said.
Other lawyers also said it may be worthwhile to have laws specifically targeting bullies in school. 
On the police’s part, investigations into bullying cases begin if there is a prima facie – at first impression – arrestable offence and there are sufficient grounds to proceed.
The Singapore Police Force told CNA it adopts a “victim-centric approach” in the process.
For egregious cases, police investigations will include interviews, recording statements, gathering evidence and referring the case to the Attorney-General’s Chambers for prosecutorial action as appropriate. 
The police said it will also work with MOE to manage the involved parties appropriately.
Mr Chan, the education minister, noted in his parliament speech this month that adults sometimes can also be a “complicating factor” in bullying cases.
“Sometimes these are most unhelpful in helping us to manage a situation on hand and rehabilitate the perpetrator and help the victim to heal.”
Echoing what other teachers told CNA, Chloe, a primary school educator of 22 years, said parents are more outspoken these days – and school management more inclined to listen to and abide by the wishes of parents.
Additionally and possibly relatedly, levels of discipline in schools are “no longer as strong”, putting at risk the structures needed to spell out the consequences of students’ actions, she added.
“If schools really step up with the discipline, then maybe things could be better. We don’t have to wait until something happens and goes out into the news, to say we do not condone,” said Chloe.
“If there’s a very fixed system (where) we’re not scared of parents, we are very firm in what we do, then … students will understand the boundaries and they will try not to push it too much.” 
Parents meanwhile need to be better role models and not behave in ways that are unwittingly forms of bullying for kids to pick up on, said Lucas the counsellor.
For example, if too stressed out from work, parents may use anger or aggression on their child. 
“That shuts the child up very quickly … so at home, the child can be very well-behaved, because (he or she) is very afraid of their parents,” he said. “But in school, that oppression is being released. So they become their parents’ shadow.”
“I would say that bullying sometimes starts from parents.”
While Leah’s mother countered that parents also need to teach their children to stand up for themselves, she agreed bullies are “made and not born” and that upbringing and family environment matter.
She also pointed to Singapore’s Children and Young Persons Act, which among other things makes it an offence for parents to influence a child to develop anti-social behaviour. This could more explicitly include bullying, she suggested.
The mum reiterated the need for teachers to actively monitor known bullies and immediately report incidents.
“Parents and teachers need to work together to create an action plan,” she said. 
Many parties CNA spoke to for this story concurred.
In the experience of Emily, the other counsellor, collaborating closely with parents has been constructive and the more open ones have even ended up going for family therapy sessions to help their children.
 “When parents allow themselves to be vulnerable and work together with the different stakeholders, it is more effective than (a) power struggle to blame who is not doing their job,” she added.
The goal, said Ms Ng from the CABCY anti-bullying coalition, must be to raise a generation to appreciate the right to be in a classroom that embraces equity – and fundamentally, to go to school safely.