Strict punishment urged to prevent bullying

Strict punishment should be used to prevent students from bullying at school, experts have said.

Fu Weidong, an associate professor at Central China Normal University in Wuhan, Hubei province, said strict punishment should be introduced to make bullies and their guardians realize they would have to pay high costs for such behavior.

He made the remarks after a recent survey conducted by his university, which he participated in, found the incidence of school bullying is still high, given that the government and society have taken measures in recent years to curb behaviors or phenomena that are harmful to the development of young children.

The survey polled more than 10,000 students in six provinces and regions, both inland and coastal, more developed or less, in 2019 and 2020, and found that 32.4 percent of students had experienced bullying－a high proportion but down compared with the findings of previous surveys.

This finding was partly echoed by a survey conducted by the School Bullying Research Center at Shandong Normal University in Jinan, Shandong province, among more than 13,000 primary and middle school students nationwide since 2018, which also showed that nearly 20 percent were involved in school bullying.

Media reported that in January, a girl passed out after being slapped more than 60 times by two female classmates in the washroom of a middle school in Chuzhou, Anhui province.

In April, some girls at a middle school in Cangzhou, Hebei province, were reported to have abused, kicked, slapped and stripped a female classmate.

In September, four boarding school students in Wuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, were found to have beaten a roommate in the dormitory.

Fu said school bullying occurs more among those aged between 10 and 16. "Children of these age groups have more intensive social activities at school," he said. "This means contradictions and conflicts with peers are sometimes inevitable.

"Meanwhile, immaturity means they usually don't have enough sensibility to deal with social problems well. Both factors determine that they have a tendency to turn to bullying as a way of resolving disagreements."

Xiong Bingqi, director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute in Beijing, said the central government has paid great attention to school bullying and has worked to tackle the problem for several years.

In 2016, the Education Inspection Committee of the State Council announced a crackdown on school bullying. The same year, nine departments, including the Ministry of Education, released a guideline on the control and prevention of bullying and violence among primary and middle school students.

In 2017, a comprehensive plan issued by 11 departments strengthened the management of bullying among students. The plan mentioned that a long-term system should be established to prevent school bullying from happening and to make school a safe and comfortable place for students.

These documents have helped keep school bullying from happening more frequently, Xiong said.

However, Fu said it is still difficult to root out bullying at school, as such behavior is "hard to define, obtain evidence and deal with".

Although laws and regulations have made progress in defining "school bullying" or "bullying among students" more clearly, more efforts are needed to lower the incidence of such behaviors, he added.

Li Jinghong, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said a guidebook should be compiled to help schools, children's guardians and social organizations know what should be done after a bullying incident occurs at a school.

He also suggested that minors who bully peers on purpose with "vicious intentions" should be strictly punished and their behaviors included in their personal records.