A RECENT Unicef survey finding that seven in 10 Malaysian children fear being bullied is a reminder to anti-bullying campaigner Dr Nurul Kharmila Abdullah that not enough is being done to tackle the problem in schools.

The mother of a 14-year-old bully victim still feels that awareness about bullying remains low among parents. And just as shocking to her is that even adults are also coming forward to talk about the scars they still carry from their past as victims of bullying.

Dr Nurul Kharmila has been giving talks after she started an anti-bullying campaign to raise public awareness about the issue earlier this year. Her son was one of six Form Two victims bullied by 10 students at Maktab Rendah Sains MARA (MRSM) in May.

“It’s not as simple as going around telling people about bullying and the job is done. It is a very complex phenomenon.

“Lots of parents have come up to me for advice. They don’t know what to do when they find out that their children are being bullied or when their children are accused of bullying others,” she told The Malaysian Insight.

A recent Unicef survey found that seven in 10 Malaysian children age between 9 and 18 worried about being bullied. Some 11,000 boys and girls were polled in the survey.

The findings show that Malaysian children are more worried about bullying than their peers in other countries such as Japan (three in 10 children) and the United Kingdom (four in 10 children).

Dr Nurul Kharmila said parents had to work closely with teachers and take the time to equip themselves with the parenting skills to deal with bullying, on top of juggling the daily pressures of making ends meet.

“It’s not easy to get teenage sons to talk, but it’s important,” she said.

She said many child victims continue to suffer in silence as they did not know who to turn to or what to do when they were bullied.

Her son is doing well now in another school, where there is no tradition of ragging. But at his previous school, Dr Nurul Kharmila did not know — and her son did not tell her — that he had been bullied since he entered the school.  

“The seniors would ask him to cook Maggi (instant noodles) and fetch water for them, iron and wash their clothes, and ask them (the juniors) for money.

“He was beaten up since last year. He only told us he wanted to move to another school but when we asked him if someone had hit him, he said, ‘no’,” she said.

Her son only told her about the bullying in May, when he was badly injured with bruises and cuts. The bullies, who were later found guilty and suspended from school, had assaulted him for refusing to surrender his boots to them. They also forced him to drink hot water and poured hot water over his body. 

Adults coming forward

Dr Nurul Kharmila, a forensic medicine lecturer at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, said her campaign had also opened a can of worms, leading to strangers and colleagues to share their harrowing tales of being ragged as a junior in local boarding schools.

“It’s quite alarming to hear these men, who are now emeritus professors, sharing their memories of being bullied. Some of them can still remember clearly what happened and some still hold grudges.

“A colleague told me he was beaten when he was in Form Four and had a rubbish bin shoved on his head. When he told his parents, they told him to ‘bertahan lah’ (just endure) because that was a good school. 

“These incidents can leave a permanent psychological scar on people. It’s scary. Often, bystanders are also scared to report (the incidents),” she said.

She is planning to take her anti-bullying campaign to the next level by partnering with two other civil society groups, including the MRSM Parent-Teacher Association (Muafakat).

“Many groups are carrying out anti-bullying campaigns now. I’m quite happy with that. But there needs to be a more coordinated effort.

“The Education Ministry, police, schools, parents, teachers, lawmakers… we need to work together going forward,” she said, adding that her focus would be on raising awareness.

Schools need to do more

The Education Ministry has yet to respond to a request for comment on the Unicef findings and proposal to have anti-bullying modules in schools.

Students with disciplinary problems have declined, from 0.08% in 2013 to 0.06% in 2015, according to the ministry’s statistics.

Bullying cases in schools have declined from 4,159 cases in 2012 to 4,120 in 2013, and 2,825 in 2014, but the number rose again in 2015 to 2,968.

President of the National Union of the Teaching Profession Kamarozaman Abdul Razak, said the Education Ministry needed to address the lack of counselling teachers in schools in order to tackle bullying effectively. Counselling is the first recourse and expulsion from school is the last. Apart from that, the ministry has no other rehabilitation programme for troubled students.

“We need more counsellors to deal with troubled students in primary and secondary schools. Right now, most of the school counsellors are stressed and overworked,” he said.

The current ratio of one counsellor to 300 pupils in primary schools and 500 students in secondary schools was insufficient. The ratio should be one to 200, he said.

“Many of the primary school counsellors are not even full-time, they also have teaching duties,” he added.

He said apart from school bullies, school counsellors were also responsible for helping students from broken families or low-income groups.

“We aim to be a first-world country by 2020, but we have to adopt their appreciation for counsellors and a mature counselling culture in schools,” he said, adding that his requests and concerns to the Education Ministry had fallen on deaf ears.

Kamarozaman had counselled delinquent students in several schools in his teaching career and found that the punitive approach did not work with bullies.

“The disciplinary teachers can scold them. They will not listen. They will just treat the teacher like an enemy.

“Counsellors need to have the skills and knowledge to counsel them (the troubled students) to let go of their anger and vengeance. Otherwise, they may retaliate by damaging the teacher’s car (or engage in other destructive behaviour),” he said.

He said the high-risk students whom school counsellors could not handle must be identified and referred to psychologists or psychiatrists.

The lack of good role models in society was also a problem. Politicians, Kamarozaman said, were not good role models as they were often seen to be fighting.

“They need counselling, too.” – November 22, 2017.