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CHENNAI: The state education department will team up with more than 200 government, corporation and private schools in the city to put an end to bullying on school campuses. Faculty and students will be trained on identifying and dealing with bullying behaviours starting next month.

“We will hold such sessions for parents too so they can understand the intensity of the issue and look out for their wards,” said a senior official from the department. The programme will be conducted with paediatricians, scholars and educators for 12 weekends.

Officials said the initiative is aimed at creating a healthy environment for children in schools after they received complaints from parents and victims of bullying. “They (victims) simply refuse to go to school and many a time, they do not raise a complaint out of fear,” the official said.

The department also has plans to launch an online portal through which students can report any unsafe activities in schools, anonymously. Every school will have an anti-bullying task force comprising one teacher and five students from primary, middle and higher classes. This group will regularly interact with peers, act as mentors and hold awareness programmes on the long term impacts bullying can have on victims such as poorer physical and psychological health.

“We have found that children who have either bullied or been bullied often turn violent at a later stage,” said Jothi Kolathur, a city-based student counsellor.

Bullying is intentional and unprovoked and includes inflicting physical harm, excluding, body-shaming and other verbal abuse, badmouthing.

Jothi recalled an incident where a 12-year-old girl refused to go to school to avoid being bullied by her peers. They would call her names and comment on her skin tone. “She was ostracised from the class, she complained to the teacher but in vain. We had to counsel her and her classmates regularly to get things back to normal.”

Ezhilarasi, principal of T Nagar government girls school, said it was important to sensitise teachers because they spend the most time with children. “They can easily gauge the situation. They need to understand the seriousness of bullying and engage in direct dialogues with children.”

United Nations calls childhood bullying as a world-wide malaise. A Unicef study found that more than 30% of children were either bullied or were bullying others. In more than 50% of the cases, children accepted that bullying led to fights and quarrels, leaving them scared.

Psychiatrist Lakshmi Vijayakumar said bullies are often children who either witness domestic violence or are unable to perform well in school. Social media and video game addiction also play a role. “Children watch and learn from their elders. Hence, it is important that we behave well too.”

