A Campaign against school violence

You are not alone. Together we stop school violence – is the message of the Ministry of Education, which is launching a campaign against the latest cases of violence in Romanian schools

Daniela Budu, 11.11.2022, 13:50

The
Ministry of Education will be running a campaign entitled ‘You are not alone.
Together we stop school violence’ after the latest violent events in the
Romanian schools, where a high-school student has fired an airsoft gun in
school and another one has stabbed one of his colleagues.

These
are just two of the cases but the Education Ministry last year reported over 10
thousand cases of violence in Romanian schools, two thousand more than two
years ago. A World Vision report over April-May this year also shows that one out
of five children says that violence is present and very present in their schools.
The former field Minister Sorin Campeanu has acknowledged the phenomenon and
voiced the need of anti-bullying action groups in any Romanian school.

You
are not alone is the message we convey to students who have been victims of
verbal, physical or psychological violence, we must support them and protect
their right, the new field minister Ligia Deca has announced. In a communiqué,
the ministry is condemning any act of physical, verbal, psychological violence
and considers essential that students who have shown a violent conduct, should
benefit from specialized counseling.

In
the meantime family and school must make efforts so that the violent actions
may not repeat, the authorities say. Furthermore, the ministry announces, it
would advertise by means of social networking a series of essential notions
about certain types of violence, such as cyber-bullying, the use of social
networks, the students’ rights and obligations the role of the County Centers
of Resources and Educational Assistance and of School Safety Police.

The
institution has already launched a video part of a campaign of raising people’s
awareness regarding these issues, showing it is not indifferent to the repeated
cases of violence, which have been seen in Romanian schools of late.

Education Minister Ligia Deca: Schools are areas of learning and socializing
not of hits and bruises. Call on teachers to talk to you about the rights and
obligations that you have and also about the consequences of violent acts. Call
for support whenever you feel that the fury and fear are getting the best of
you and refuse to be part of any act of physical or verbal aggression such as
blackmailing, bullying or even cyberbullying. And don’t forget, you are not
alone!

The Education Ministry
has announced that jointly with the Interior Ministry will be staging a series
of working sessions to set a timetable of preventing drug use, activities for
the prevention and combating of anti-social deeds at the level of gymnasium
education units as well as the counseling of the students in the risk situation
concurrently with the training of teachers.

(bill)