COMMENT | I can understand why the mother of a child at my son’s school in Bandar Utama who was being bullied was fuming over the lukewarm response she received from the Petaling Utama District Education Office.

She had also written to the Selangor State Education Department director Mohd Salleh Mohd Kassim regarding the case.

The bullying incident which happened in July was over the lesser amount of homework after the Education Ministry clamped down on the school administration for its excessive obsession with workbooks.

A boy had vented his anger at a classmate whose mother was among three mothers who had earlier raised the issue of workbooks with the education district office.

Children at Level One are not supposed to buy additional workbooks based on the ministry guidelines but when the ministry officials came down to investigate, the covers of the workbooks for some lower primary classes were being ripped apart to make them appear as worksheets.

Some teachers had deliberately stopped giving out homework although parents had already purchased the workbooks. This simply does not add up, as homework can still be given, even if workbooks had not been purchased.

After all, for 2017, the same parent had complained that her girl in Standard Five had to buy a total of 29 workbooks, which explains why the children’s bags were all so heavy.

Police reports

Based on a police report lodged on July 25, a boy had shouted at this young small-sized boy, “It is your mother who complained; (ironically,) that is why now we do not have any homework!”.

What angered the mother was that, instead of providing proper counselling to the bully, the headmistress called for a repeat of the incident in her room, and in the presence of several other adults, pressured her son to admit he had uttered certain words which the boy initially denied.

According to the mother, the class teacher had already carried out her own investigation in front of some 40 other kids who were eyewitnesses.

The irony was the bully was then asked by the headmistress to call two of his eye-witnesses but the boy who was being bullied was not asked to produce his eyewitnesses.

I learnt that my friend’s last straw was when the mother learnt that the headmistress had filmed her son “confessing” his “wrongdoing”. After a lot of pressure, the victim was totally helpless and having to face the adults watching him, he just admitted to some wrongdoing which he had denied earlier.

A second police report was lodged and the report forwarded to the relevant ministry officials for further action.

Several weeks after following up with the local district education office to view the video clip, she was told by the investigating officer that the video was taken using the headmistress’ private phone; therefore, the headmistress had the right to refuse to release it to the ministry officials.

At the most, my friend was told if she was still dissatisfied with the answer, the headmistress would agree to delete the video clip.

Till now, the mother said that the local district education officer is still pussyfooting around and unable to handle the case effectively.

Several bullying incidents followed after that until the parents raised the matter again with the senior assistant a week ago.

The bullying has thankfully stopped but we are still monitoring the school for such incidents.

Ironically, the senior assistant was unaware that the victim’s parents had written another official letter to the headmistress.

Wrongdoings dealt with?

Meanwhile, my friend’s son refused to go to school for several days when the bully kept picking on him. After the mother and son visited Putrajaya, a junior officer finally met up with them.

At my initiative, I followed up with the personal assistant to the Deputy Director-General of Education, one Dr Asmah who said that the case has now been reverted back to the State Education Department. She confirmed that this was at the instruction of the Director-General of Education.

This may be linked to the recent announcement by the Minister of Education, Mahdzir Khalid who said that all bullying cases would be reverted to the relevant state education departments. Parents are simply not amused when they are taken on a merry-go-round.

Technically, if the cases had been dealt with effectively at even the lowest level, no parent would want to take the trouble to visit Putrajaya. They only go to the ministry level when all systems appear to fail them.

As a minister, Mahdzir should realise that his instruction has a lot of implications, especially when the state education directors or their representatives have been ineffective in dealing with important issues, especially involving the school administrators.

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.