Amid in­creas­ing con­cerns about bul­ly­ing, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly says the Na­tion­al Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix gives clear guid­ance to schools, stu­dents, and par­ents on how dif­fer­ent in­frac­tions of bul­ly­ing should be han­dled. Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about bul­ly­ing, Gads­by-Dol­ly em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of bal­anc­ing pro­gres­sive dis­ci­pline with sup­port sys­tems for stu­dents.

She ex­plained that the Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix em­pha­sis­es pro­gres­sive dis­ci­pline, in­clud­ing coun­selling and restora­tive prac­tices, but not­ed there are sit­u­a­tions where im­me­di­ate puni­tive ac­tions must be tak­en.

“Where puni­tive dis­ci­pli­nary op­tions must be con­sid­ered, there is room for ad­min­is­tra­tors to rec­om­mend more or less se­vere con­se­quences, de­pend­ing on the unique na­ture of the cir­cum­stances faced in schools,” she said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly stressed that in cas­es where a sin­gle act is con­sid­ered se­ri­ous enough, im­me­di­ate sus­pen­sion, ex­tend­ed sus­pen­sion, or even ex­pul­sion could re­sult.

She said, “The Ma­trix pro­gress­es stu­dent dis­ci­pline through teacher and par­ent con­fer­ences, Stu­dent Sup­port in­ter­ven­tion, and even restora­tive prac­tices be­fore the prospect of sus­pen­sion is con­sid­ered. But should a sin­gle act be con­sid­ered gross enough, it may re­sult in im­me­di­ate sus­pen­sion, ex­tend­ed sus­pen­sion, or even ex­pul­sion.”

The min­is­ter point­ed out that over the past two aca­d­e­m­ic years, fol­low­ing the re­turn of stu­dents to phys­i­cal schools, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) fo­cused on en­sur­ing stu­dents un­der­stand the con­se­quences of their ac­tions. “Stu­dents must un­der­stand that their ac­tions do have con­se­quences and that the rules of dis­ci­pline are to be kept,” she said.

In cas­es where stu­dents are on the brink of ex­pul­sion, the min­istry has im­ple­ment­ed an Ex­pul­sion Warn­ing Let­ter sys­tem. “This sys­tem warns par­ents about their child’s po­ten­tial ex­pul­sion, and any sub­se­quent in­frac­tion leads to ex­pul­sion.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, re­peat of­fend­ers are of­ten moved to in­sti­tu­tions such as SER­VOL cen­tres or the Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing (Mi­LAT) pro­gramme, which pro­vide en­vi­ron­ments more con­ducive to be­hav­iour­al trans­for­ma­tion,” she added.

She al­so not­ed that more stu­dents have been moved out of the main­stream ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem than is av­er­age.

“This demon­strates the MOE’s com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing that dis­rup­tive stu­dents do not neg­a­tive­ly af­fect those who want to ben­e­fit from their ed­u­ca­tion,” she ex­plained.

The min­is­ter high­light­ed the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing a bal­ance at the school lev­el, say­ing that while ef­forts must be made to help stu­dents trans­form their be­hav­iour, there comes a point when prin­ci­pals must es­ca­late stu­dent dis­ci­pline mat­ters for more se­ri­ous con­se­quences.

“Prin­ci­pals do and must make the call with re­gard to the es­ca­la­tion of stu­dent files to the min­is­ter for more se­ri­ous con­se­quences to be tak­en with re­gard to dis­ci­pline,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to Gads­by-Dol­ly, the num­ber of fights and as­saults in schools has de­creased com­pared to last year, as the min­istry’s ef­forts to im­prove stu­dent dis­ci­pline have been mul­ti-pronged and con­sis­tent­ly ap­plied.

She said these ini­tia­tives are part of the min­istry’s Re­me­di­al Ed­u­ca­tion Pol­i­cy and Cul­tur­al Trans­for­ma­tion Pol­i­cy, both of which are pub­licly avail­able along with the Na­tion­al Dis­ci­pline Ma­trix.