THE island’s primary schools are facing a bigger problem with bullying than those at the secondary level pushing leaders in the education sector to shift their focus to tackling the root causes of this issue from an early age.

A report by the Citizen Security Secretariat, an entity of the Ministry of National Security, has revealed that bullying is 1.2 per cent higher in primary schools than in secondary schools. The report also revealed that bullying is highest in all-male schools (45.2 per cent), followed by co-ed schools (40.2 per cent), and the lowest in all-female schools (27.8 per cent).

Reacting to the data, director of safety and security in the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth, and Information Richard Troupe argued that priority attention must be given to students at the primary level to address bullying.

“We’re very happy that one of the major findings of the survey spoke to the fact that the greatest threat to students’ perception of safety and security comes from the students themselves. It’s a recognition that we need to do more work with our students and our student leaders to ensure that they are also addressing this particular issue,” Troupe said.

He was speaking with the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday at a violence against youth round-table discussion hosted by Jamaica Youth Advocacy Network in collaboration with the High Commission of Canada in Jamaica at The Summit, New Kingston.

“We’re not surprised that the prevalence of bullying is high at the primary level. What is of concern to us is that a significant portion of our resources would have been committed to intervention at the secondary school level,” he said.

“It is a recognition now that we have to refocus our efforts to ensure that we are giving priority attention to children at the primary level. Because we know that those who are victims of bullying, when the issues are not resolved, they themselves grow up to become perpetrators of bullying…and that is why we should not be surprised by the high incidence of bullying, even in year seven. It is a reflection of the behaviour coming from the primary school,” added Troupe.

He also expressed concern about the high incidence of bullying at all-boys’ and all-girls’ schools, which, he said, represents the ‘cream of the crop’ within the education system in terms of students’ performance.

“If we are serious about treating violence in schools, we have to be serious about addressing violence in communities and homes. The violence we see in schools doesn’t just drop out of the sky like that; it must come from somewhere, and if we are going to impact the situation, all three areas are important. Schools that are located in volatile communities tend to be more vulnerable to violence interfacing in that particular space,” Troupe said.

He told the Observer that the education ministry is also concerned about the proliferation of small arms in the country, providing easier access to students.

“The potential risk of a firearm incident taking place in our schools is real — not just in schools located in the heart of garrison communities,” he said.

Troupe also expressed concerns about the type of music children are exposed to, which glorifies acts of violence.

“Because, on one hand, we blame children for many of the deviant behaviour, but when you listen to the kind of songs our children listen to every single day — songs that glorify guns, scamming, sex, and drugs — you also have the artistes who are the producers of these songs blatantly saying that they do not take responsibility for the choices children make after listening to these songs,” lamented Troupe.

He underscored that there is “no silver bullet” to tackle violence as this will require long-term investment and patience.

Gang culture also appears more prevalent in schools located in volatile communities. While 13.6 per cent of students in other schools report knowing someone involved in gangs, 37.4 per cent of students in volatile areas report the same. This indicates that students in these schools are three times more likely to encounter gang-related issues.

The study by the Citizen Security Secretariat examined school stakeholders’ perceptions of safety and security. All teachers, principals, parents, and staff were invited to participate. Only students from grades four to six were invited to participate from primary schools. It had a sample size of 11,817 (9,760 students, 188 principals, 806 teachers, 175 admin staff, 106 ancillary staff, and 782 parents).

The majority of schools (72.5 per cent) perceive their safety and security as moderately safe and secure. A smaller proportion of schools (24.7 per cent) reported feeling unsafe or insecure, while only 2.7 per cent of schools feel safe and secure. No schools reported being perfectly safe or completely unsafe.

Meanwhile, one in every two females and one in every six males expect that they will encounter sexual harassment during their school commute.

Jhonelle Knight, assistant vice-president (Region 1) of the National Secondary Students Council, who was among the youth panellists participating in the round-table discussion, stated that students will not feel safe until the statistics are at zero, with no student feeling unsafe.

Meanwhile, Troupe shared that the long-anticipated new school safety policy, which is aimed at strengthening security measures and ensuring swift action in cases of violence on school grounds, is being finalised to go to Cabinet.

“Having finalised the draft policy, a technical team from the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth, and Information developed an implementation plan and a five-year budget for the policy. That will now be submitted to the Cabinet for review and approval. It’s important to note, though, that while we wait for that approval, there are critical actions within the policy that we are implementing as we speak,” said Troupe.

“So that is also very important. For example, the policy to treat with the prevention, management, and response prior to an incident in school is a result of that policy. Recognising that has now become a very important concern for discussion and for us to develop a plan on how to address it.

“So we are very happy, and although it has taken a long time, I think it was worth it because this policy document for school safety speaks to two gaps that existed before. One was the issue of climate change and disaster risk management. We felt that these were important areas to be included in the document in the context of our vulnerability to climate change and disaster risk reduction,” Troupe added.