Parents seek intervention over Fyzabad school bullying

Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Par­ents of pupils at Fyz­abad Pres­by­ter­ian School are call­ing on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to in­ves­ti­gate al­leged bul­ly­ing in­ci­dents, in­clud­ing phys­i­cal as­saults which they say have left chil­dren in­jured, dis­tressed and afraid to at­tend class­es.

Two par­ents told Guardian Me­dia their chil­dren were at­tacked by class­mates and that their com­plaints to the school’s ad­min­is­tra­tion were not ad­e­quate­ly ad­dressed.

Shan­na Din­di­al said she with­drew her nine-year-old son, a Stan­dard Four pupil, af­ter he was al­leged­ly as­sault­ed on Oc­to­ber 6, sus­tain­ing in­juries to his mouth, face and back.

She said he re­ceived med­ical at­ten­tion and was giv­en three days to re­cov­er from soft tis­sue in­juries.

Din­di­al said she was dis­sat­is­fied with the school’s han­dling of the mat­ter, par­tic­u­lar­ly com­ments al­leged­ly made by a teacher sug­gest­ing her son had ha­rassed the oth­er pupil and brought the in­ci­dent up­on him­self.

She said a sub­se­quent meet­ing with the prin­ci­pal and the oth­er pupil’s fa­ther did not re­solve her con­cerns.

Din­di­al re­port­ed the in­ci­dent to the min­istry and Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices. She is tem­porar­i­ly home­school­ing her son while seek­ing a trans­fer.

“The school ad­min­is­tra­tion needs to be held ac­count­able for not deal­ing with bul­ly­ing the way it is sup­posed to be dealt with,” she said.

“Usu­al­ly, the chil­dren who are bul­lied are the ones who are be­ing treat­ed as per­pe­tra­tors.”

An­oth­er par­ent, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said her son was struck in the face with a met­al wa­ter bot­tle by a class­mate on Sep­tem­ber 30, leav­ing him with swelling and bruis­ing.

She said she sought med­ical at­ten­tion and met with the school’s ad­min­is­tra­tion and the oth­er pupil’s par­ents, but wait­ed a week for a re­sponse.

She was dis­sat­is­fied with the de­ci­sion to move her son to an­oth­er class­room, say­ing he was set­tled in his ex­ist­ing class.

The par­ent al­leged that her son had ex­pe­ri­enced pre­vi­ous bul­ly­ing in­ci­dents and had be­come re­luc­tant to at­tend school. She al­so claimed threats had been made against her and her son.

She ques­tioned why, in her view, chil­dren re­port­ing bul­ly­ing faced con­se­quences while those ac­cused of the be­hav­iour were not sus­pend­ed.

A res­i­dent al­so raised con­cerns about pupils fight­ing and quar­relling out­side the school af­ter dis­missal, call­ing for in­ter­ven­tion and greater parental in­volve­ment.

The par­ents are urg­ing the min­istry to in­ves­ti­gate and en­sure com­plaints are han­dled fair­ly and pupils are pro­tect­ed from bul­ly­ing and vi­o­lence.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the school, the prin­ci­pal was ab­sent.

Guardian Me­dia has con­tact­ed Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath for com­ment and is await­ing a re­sponse.