Improve mechanisms for reporting bullying, DepEd urged

MANILA, Philippines — With the discrepancy in statistics of bullying recorded by international large-scale assessments compared with records of the Department of Education, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian is urging the DepEd to improve its mechanisms for reporting bullying in the country’s public schools.

Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate committee on basic education, pointed out that a large number of cases are going unreported, as indicated in the discrepancies between the DepEd’s data and the findings of international large-scale assessments – the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2018 and Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) in 2019.

“If you look at PISA and SEA-PLM figures, we’re talking about more than 60 percent; 11,000 is not even one percent of the total student population, so there is a discrepancy,” he said.

“If you look at the DepEd’s numbers, it’s big. What the large-scale examinations are saying is that it’s up to 65 percent, so if we convert that to the student population, we’re talking about up to 17.5 million students as opposed to 11,000, so how do we reconcile that?” he added.

The first order of business, according to the senator, is to improve mechanisms for reporting because many students do not report, being scared of doing so.

“We can see that there’s a disparity between what is being gathered in large-scale international assessments and what’s on the ground, and that leads me to a conclusion that our units on the ground are not functioning,” Gatchalian said.

During a Senate panel hearing that reviewed the implementation of Republic Act 10627, or the Anti-Bullying Act of 2013, the DepEd reported that bullying cases have been on the rise since the law was passed.

At least seven out of 10 students in Philippine public schools have suffered some form of bullying, ranking the country first among 70 having the problem.

Gatchalian described as worrisome the prevalence of bullying, as it was supposed to have been addressed by the anti-bullying law.

In academic year 2014-2015, a total of 5,624 bullying cases were reported. The highest number of cases was recorded in AY 2018-2019 when figures reached 21,521. The number dropped to 11,637 for AY 2019-2020 possibly due to the shift to distance learning from face-to-face classes because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gatchalian cited the results of the 2018 PISA when the Philippines got the highest percentage of 15-year-old learners, out of 79 countries, who reported having experienced bullying at least a few times a month.

Based on the study’s results, 65 percent of learners reported having experienced bullying.

The 2019 SEA-PLM also revealed that 62.5 percent of the country’s Grade 5 learners reported having experienced bullying.

Compared with other Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines’ Grade 5 learners are the most exposed to bullying.