School bullies to get their comeuppance

Amid the recent spike in juvenile violence and school bullying, the government is seeking to combat the phenomenon with an immediate plan of action that involves among others the tightening of penalties, such as the reintroduction of the five-day suspension and easier expulsion from school.

The plan will engage all the relevant ministries, with the onus on that of Education, as schools are where most incidents of violence by minors are recorded. 

More specifically, as March 6 has been established by the Education Ministry as the National Day against School Violence and Bullying, the plan is scheduled for implementation later in the month. It also provides for the enforcement of measures included in a law passed in spring 2023 but not yet implemented.

The relevant data is telling regarding the spike in incidents that have over occurred over two decades. A 2000 survey on bullying in primary education of 12-year-olds from eight public and one private elementary school in Attica showed that 14.7% of students reported being a victim of bullying, 6.24% were bullies, and 4.8% were both bullies and victims. 

These numbers had grown exponentially by 2023, with another survey showing that 32.4% of children across the country had been bullied.

Schools have become veritable battlefields, with police bulletins and daily news reports of juvenile violence. 

Kathimerini understands that the new plan will, through ministerial decisions, tighten penalties and that procedures will be expedited so that the teachers’ association can more easily expel a student. It will also reintroduce the separation of absences into excused and unexcused.

Indeed, as a senior Education Ministry official told Kathimerini, “additional measures are being considered with further tightening of penalties.”

Current penalties entail verbal reprimands, suspension from classes for one or two days and change of school environment. Penalties can be imposed in a graduated manner – i.e. teachers must have exhausted the milder penalties before deciding, for example, to change a pupil’s school environment. “To reach the strictest penalty, you have to prove that you have exhausted the milder ones,” a public high school principal explained to Kathimerini.

Now the five-day suspension will return and the expulsion from school will become permanent. 

At the same time, a school disciplinary code will be drawn up – i.e. definition of penalties for each act. That is why the staggered punishment of a student will be abolished.