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School bullying is the subject of an Australia-wide review which aims to stamp out the pervasive behaviour and better safeguard students.
Schools are navigating a minefield of interactions that are playing out online, outside school hours and on platforms that are beyond their reach.
“Teachers are under so much pressure to solve the fact that the culture has been undermined by social media by this sort of mean behaviour that subtly is being permitted to exist, just because it’s so hard to stop” says Kirra Pendergast, founder and CEO of Safe On Social, a global cyber safety training company.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has written asking his state and territory peers to work together to deal with classroom and schoolyard bullying.
He recommended a short expert-led examination of current school procedures and best practice methods which address bullying.
The Federal executive government of Australia will pay for the study. Experts will report to education ministers with options for developing a national standard for dealing with bullying.
“This would inform policies across jurisdictions and sectors to provide children and parents confidence that ,no matter where their child goes to school, if they’re experiencing bullying it will be managed in an appropriate way” Clare wrote to his state and territory peers.
Bullies and bullying everywhere
Clare’s announcement follows the death of two 12-year old schoolgirls who took their lives – one following schoolyard bullying, the other after online bullying.
“Bullying is not on, anywhere, anytime, in any form” Clare said. Schoolyards, online or anywhere – bullying has to go, he said.
“Just like we are taking action to help stop bullying on social media, we also can do more where children are face to face.”
Social media ban
“I think the Australian public have spoken very clearly that they want to see greater government action and co-operation to stamp out bullying in schools and online” says Clare.
One means which the federal government will introduce is the banning of under 16-year old Australians from social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) once legislation is passed.
If passed, the law would see courts impose fines of nearly 50 million Australian dollars ($32 million) on social media companies found not to have taken reasonable steps to prevent age-restricted children from using their services.
The government says it expects them to adopt age verification technologies. That comes with privacy issues that the government said will be addressed in the legislation.
Just how the ban will be implemented and managed is unclear. Mandatory digital IDs have been rejected as an option.
If passed into law, the ban could come into effect by the end of 2025.
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