Wide-ranging changes to the Regulations on Preventing Schoolyard Bullying (校園霸凌防制準則) are being mulled, which would include a definition of Internet or electronic bullying, the Ministry of Education said on Tuesday.
The ministry cited polls, conducted using random sampling, that found that 55,000 out of 3 million, or 1.83 percent, of students from fifth grade to the third year of high school in the 2017 school year were bullied online, up from 26,000 students, or 0.8 percent, in the 2015 school year.
The statistics show that Internet bullying is becoming more prevalent, prompting its inclusion as a category in the regulations, the ministry said.
Restorative justice would be a guiding principle in the reforms, it said.
It would de-escalate conflict and urge reconciliation between individuals by including them in a reconciliatory meeting, the ministry said.
A draft amendment has provisions to allow anyone with knowledge of a bullying incident to notify schools, the ministry said, adding that any reports of bullying by the media, the police or medical workers would be considered an official report.
To uphold the spirit of the Education Fundamental Act (教育基本法) and to prevent students from being bullied, the draft amendments include deans, vice deans and other faculty, including substitute teachers and other school workers, among those who might bully students, it said.
Deans would be investigated by the ministry, or the local government’s education authority, while cases involving vice deans, faculty and other staff would be forwarded to the judiciary, in line with the Teachers’ Act (教師法), it said.
A committee to investigate bullying would seek input from doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, social welfare personnel and lawyers as appropriate, the ministry said.
Should accusations of bullying fail to be substantiated, the committee should still look into whether there have been incidents of corporal punishment or improper education, the ministry said, citing the Teachers’ Act.
The draft amendments define bullying as “repeated invasive action” — the direct or indirect derision, ostracization or harassment via language, pictures, symbols or physical acts with derogatory connotations, or through digital means on the Internet — committed against another, the ministry said.
The action has to be deliberate and cause the victim to be afraid, feel physical pain or mental stress, suffer financially or have other effects detrimental to normal learning, it said.
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