NEW YORK - Children face violence and bullying at school all over the world, with one in every three students subject to attacks at least once a month and one in 10, a victim of cyberbullying, the UN said on Thursday.
The warning from UNESCO, the UN organization for education, science and culture, based on 2019 data, coincides with the first International Day against Violence and Bullying at School - Including Cyberbullying, on 5 November.
“Recent attacks on schools in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Pakistan, and the assassination of teacher Samuel Paty in France, sadly underscore the critical issue of protecting our schools from all forms of violence,” said UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, in a statement.
‘Neglected, minimised or ignored’
Tackling bullying is also key to the protection of students, Ms. Azoulay continued, describing it as a “blight” that was “neglected, minimized or ignored”, even though it inflicted “physical and emotional suffering on millions of children around the world”.
Given the scale of school violence and bullying highlighted in a 2019 report by UNESCO covering 144 countries, Ms. Azoulay insisted on the need to raise global awareness and put a stop to both problems.
“As students, parents, members of the educational community and ordinary citizens, we have all a part to play in stopping violence and bullying in schools", she maintained.
Outside chance
The consequences of bullying can have devastating consequences on academic achievement, school dropout, and physical and mental health, the UN education agency said in a statement.
It defined bullying as aggressive behaviour that involves unwanted, negative actions repeated over time and an imbalance of power or strength between the perpetrators and the victims.
“Children who are frequently bullied are nearly three times more likely to feel like an outsider at school and more than twice as likely to miss school as those who are not frequently bullied,” UNESCO said. “They have worse educational outcomes than their peers and are also more likely to leave formal education after finishing secondary school.”
