More than one student per class is on average the victim of school bullying according to the results ofa major national survey revealed by the new Minister of National Education Nicole Belloubet, this Monday, February 12.
The survey carried out in November 2023, in the wake of an interministerial plan against school bullying, demonstrated that 5% of schoolchildren from CE2 to CM2, 6% of middle school students and 4% of high school students are considered victims of harassment, clarified the new minister during her first trip, to a college in Reims. “It’s a real scourge that we absolutely must regulate,” the minister told the press.
“A student should not come to his school with fear in his stomach, but on the contrary with a smile on his lips,” added Nicole Belloubet, who during her visit to the Robert-Schuman college, spoke with the team of anti-harassment program of the establishment. “In a school environment, harassment is the act, for a student or a group of students, of repeatedly subjecting a classmate to negative or even violent comments or behavior,” explains the National Education statistical service, which used a representative sample of 17,000 questionnaires submitted to a total of 7.5 million students from CE2 to final year.
19% of schoolchildren from CE2 to CM2
The conclusions of the study reveal that a significant proportion of students must be subject to increased vigilance in the face of the risk of harassment, i.e. 19% of schoolchildren from CE2 to CM2, 6% of middle school students and 5% of high school students. This vast survey will now be carried out each year in the form of an “annual barometer of harassment in schools” intended to monitor the evolution of this phenomenon, announced the new Minister of Education.
In the event of discovery of a risky situation via the questionnaire, “a new individual self-assessment during which anonymity will be lifted, with the agreement of the parents” will be decided, specified the Ministry of National Education .
The government unveiled an interministerial plan to combat school bullying at the end of September, promising “general mobilization” against this “massive phenomenon”. Empathy courses, confiscation of cell phones in serious cases, exclusion of student harassers on social networks: the executive affirmed to make the fight against school bullying its “absolute priority” for the start of the 2023 school year after a series of tragedies like the suicide of young Lindsay in Pas-de-Calais or of a teenager, Nicolas, in Yvelines. The figures revealed on Monday should be compared to previous figures widely relayed by the press and political leaders showing an average of one student in 10 affected by school bullying.