Bullying in schools should stop forthwith – Mnangagwa

Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa has called for an immediate end to bullying in schools to stop, vowing to put in place efforts to bring it to an end.

He was speaking at Pricabe farm on Saturday.

“The bullying in schools should stop forthwith,” Mnangagwa said.

“I have heard of kids and gangs killing each other. We will deal with this issue, including school authorities who are found wanting. We will deal with them,” he concluded.

A month ago, a boy from Founders High School, Wayne Ndlovu, was stabbed to death while protecting a boy who was being attacked.

Just last week, a 15 year-old Form Three student at Hamilton High School committed suicide after he had suffered from prolonged bullying.

What has made things worse is an element of cyberbullying. A study by Dickson Machimbidza and Vincent Mabvurira gave the reasons for cyberbullying in Zimbabwe.

The study showed fun and boredom has the highest percentage (26.7%) while the differences among learners have the second highest proportion (21.7%) of motivating learners to execute cyberbullying activities. Both peer pressure and intimate relationships were reported to be contributing (16.7%) in motivating learners to cyberbully each other. The findings also demonstrated that the motives for cyberbullying that were less frequent among high school learners include low self-esteem (3.3%), jealous (8.3%) and exposure to violent media (6.7%).

It further pointed to the effects of cyberbullying.

The results portrayed that learners are affected by cyberbullying psychologically, physically and socially. The psychological effects included suicidal thoughts, emotional instability, poor mental health and low self-esteem whereas the social effects included absconding school, truancy and bad relationships with family and friends. The physical effects included the potential of the victims and perpetrator getting into violent conflicts.