Survey finds 20% of primary school students experienced bullying
By Pearl Forss, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 28 July 2007 2104 hrs

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SINGAPORE: A survey conducted by the Singapore Children's Society found that one in every five primary school students could be a victim of bullying.

Among the 165 primary school students surveyed, more than 20 per cent experienced bullying, of which 65 per cent suffered verbal abuse and 42 per cent were physically bullied.

While verbal bullying refers to name calling and the use of abusive language, physical bullying means students were beaten, or had things thrown at them.

"We realised that some of the consequences of bullying could be children not being able to concentrate in class… There are students also telling us that they have difficulty sleeping at night because they have experienced bullying in school," said Tan Bee Joo, head of Student Service Hub, Singapore Children's Society.

In fact, over ten per cent of the victims surveyed skipped school to avoid being bullied. And four out of five victims said their bullies came from the same class.

The survey also showed that one in every three victims chose not to tell anybody about the problem.

However, six out of every ten students surveyed said they felt angry when bullied.

According to the survey, over 60 per cent of the bullies who confessed to their acts were actually victims of bullying themselves, which means bullying might encourage copycat behaviour. - CNA/ac