The habit of learners mostly in some boarding schools bullying new comers appears to have taken root with victims being routinely subjected to untold suffering.
Ironically, this happens even in some national schools under the noses of administrators due to unconcern or without their knowledge.
The vice is common where prefects take over the discipline docket as heads often concentrate on school finances and management, relegating the day-to-day running of institutions to deputies.
Taking various guises, in a school setting it may take forced labour, confiscation of one’s possessions like toiletries for use by the bully. Other methods include labeling, sheer blackmail and intimidation of the victim.
Usually one who has been bullied will tolerate or even encourage it later. The oppressed becomes the oppressor by projecting bottled up agony on others. Bullying can affect everyone—those bullied, those whobully, and those who witness it.
An incident in a school under investigation in Nairobi County, revealed how a Form Two boy was seriously injured in an alleged case of bullying gone awry. The boy must have probably endured bullying since Form One. Victims who are weak and cannot physically fight back often fall into depression even as bullying manifests itself in low performance in class, lack of self-esteem, deviant behavior, drug abuse, lesbianism among other means of venting frustration. In extreme cases it may lead to loss of life. What, then should school heads do? With co-operation of alert class teachers the telltale signs of a troubled learner–withdrawal, unexplained change in behavior among others –can be noticed straightaway.
Regular meetings with students where they are empowered to speak out in candidly in discussions will arrest the situation. All students must be told nobody should be allowed to compromise their safety while in school.
In this day and age, it is utterly inconceivable that a vice that is as obnoxious as it is nauseating can be condoned as victims suffer silently in an independent country.
It is imperative for the Government to urgently, with all stakeholders’ support, take drastic measures against culprits so as to stamp out the vice once and for all.
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