I was on my working visit to some schools in Kedah and decided to pay a personal visit to the home of school bully victim Muhammad Ridzuan Mohammed Ismail from Sekolah Kebangsaan Iskandar, Alor Setar.

The incident took place in December 2014. I am deeply saddened with this incident and incidents of bullying in our schools. This is a dangerous culture and behaviour that we need to put a stop to. It requires the combined efforts of all involved, not just the school or the Education Ministry.

There are many facets to bullying - including verbal, emotional, physical and even cyber bullying. However, it is human tendency to only take matters seriously when it is our children who are the victims or perpetrators of such acts. Instead of reacting to the issue, I wish to appeal to all parents to work together with the school and the Education Ministry to prevent such incidents from happening.

More often than not, we find that victims of bullying do not report the matter to school authorities. The Education Ministry is committed to change this attitude and provide channels for victims of bullying to feel safe and protected when reporting a bullying incident. The school should be a place where the students feel safe, with an environment that supports social and intellectual growth.

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Though the cases of reported bullying is only 0.05 percent of the total student population (more than 5 million), it is a still a worrying trend that we wish to eradicate completely.

The Education Ministry is very concerned about the act of bullying in schools, and will not compromise in taking stern action against those caught in this act. All schools have been given clear guidelines on this matter, and we have also taken proactive measures to address this issue in schools.

The ministry has taken the following measures to address and mitigate the existence of a bullying tendency among students:

Appointing a professional teacher counselor for every 500 students in a school;
Identifying and providing dedicated counseling for problematic students;
Providing an effective platform in schools for students to provide feedback or complaints; and
Organising orientation programmes for new students to get to know the school, teachers and students better.

In addition to the above, since 2014, the ministry has started a programme called ‘Healthy Mind’ (Minda Sihat) to help students in secondary schools to manage stress, anxiety and the feeling of low morale due to environment, family or personal matters.

I wish to again appeal to both parents and students to play a critical role in this issue, by coming forward to report any form of ragging or bullying that they may have information on inside the school.

The school is duty-bound under our standard operating procedure to report such matters to the state education department and the ministry, and at the same time take immediate action, wherever necessary.

Let us put a stop to bullying in our schools, together.

P KAMALANATHAN is Deputy Education Minister and Hulu Selangor MP.