As part of a new plan adopted on Thursday, the government of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FWB) will equip schools with improved resources to prevent bullying within its schools, according to RTBF.
Bullying, which has only been made worse by social media, poses a real problem for schools in Wallonia and across the country. In Belgium, an estimated one in three pupils will face bullying. For some, the weight of harassment can be overwhelming. In France, bullying recently led to the suicide of a 14-year-old girl.
Until now, French-speaking schools have been largely helpless to stem the tide of bullying faced at school. Some particularly affected schools do receive a subsidy intended to help with this problem on an ad hoc basis, but the government has only provided support for around 40 establishments per year.
Existing support has failed to provide a framework, either practical or regulatory, to equip and guide schools in how to manage this issue. Caroline Désir, Minister of Education for the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, said that the regional government’s action plan aims to change this.
“The current situation no longer meets anyone’s needs, not the pupil, parent, management or teacher… There is therefore a real challenge in proposing a more structural and more sustainable action policy."
Better resources
In the new plan, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation aims to improve the social climate at French-speaking schools.
“There is sometimes a tendency to reduce the problem of bullying to bickering between two students, or group violence when it is often a relational dynamic that involves a harasser, their victims, and their witnesses,” a ministerial note reads. “We must therefore avoid shortcuts and train the crosshairs on the school climate.”
The document states that raising the quality of other school elements such as mutual understanding between pupils, parents and teachers, academic pressure, and levels of dropout or academic failure will lead to a reduction in bullying.
A School Climate Observatory will be created to monitor the social climate of French-speaking schools, supplying teachers with references and tools to intervene.
From next academic year, schools will receive external help from professionals trained by the FWB. These professionals will provide training to all staff members at schools in tackling different forms of bullying, as well as establishing information sessions for parents, and implementing conflict management tools.
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These external actors may also encourage schools to establish a specialised team of student ambassadors or trained staff to help immediate and prevent bullying in the early stages. Schools will receive support from external contractors for a period of four years, in several waves, after which time the school will be equipped to deal with bullying autonomously.
This ambitious plan to crack down on bullying will require significant investment from the state. The cost of the programme is estimated at €1,500–€5,000 per year, per school. A budget of €2.64 million has been set aside by the FWB to realise this project.
The goal is to enrol 400 schools permanently into the program, but at launch, 200 will be called in for the 2023-2024 academic year, and 200 in 2024-2025. The programme will primarily be aimed at primary and secondary school students.
