Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer announced that they will constantly support students, teachers and families in order to raise awareness against peer bullying, that they will strengthen the programs in the Family School project and start professional development programs for counselors.
Minister Ozer; He made evaluations about the “Integrated School Approach in Preventing Peer Bullying Workshop” organized in Ankara in order to explain peer bullying, increase awareness, strengthen school-family cooperation and support the studies to be carried out afterwards. Pointing out that the visibility of peer bullying has increased in the media recently, Özer said that this does not mean that there is "widespread peer bullying in schools", that these incidents are singular events in the huge education system with 19 million 150 thousand students and 1 million 200 thousand teachers.
Explaining that they are working to build a safe school climate, and that they are trying to build mechanisms that will strengthen and support the school, Özer said that the Ministry of National Education General Directorate of Special Education and Guidance Services carries out multi-dimensional studies on preventive methods through counselors.
In this context, Minister Özer noted that in the 2022-2023 academic year, new awareness and psychoeducation programs including "peer bullying", "cyberbullying" and "psychological resilience" were prepared at all levels in schools.
Stating that classroom guidance programs are carried out and developmental preventive psychological counseling and guidance services are provided in schools for risk situations, Özer explained that they also prepare peer bullying awareness programs. Özer also stated that various programs have been prepared for preschool and primary school students to raise awareness about peer bullying and develop coping skills.
Expressing that they reached 841 million 267 thousand 1 people, 147 thousand 555 of whom were women, with the Family School project they started to take into account not only the school but also the out-of-school environments, Özer said that they reached 170 thousand people in four or five months with the village life centers, and added that tolerance and communication environment in the society would increase. stressed that they are working to strengthen In schools, in the whole education system, teacher to student, student to teacher; Underlining that they show zero tolerance for bullying by the student against the student and the teacher against the teacher, Özer said that they follow all the processes in this regard.
Expressing that they will not make the slightest concession on making educational institutions safe for children and teachers, Özer stated that they have accelerated the efforts to popularize this culture in schools. Özer reminded that they organized a workshop on “Integrative School Approach in Preventing Peer Bullying” with 150 participants consisting of academicians, school administrators from different provinces from different types and levels, guidance teachers and psychological counselors in order to explain peer bullying, increase awareness and support the studies to be carried out afterwards. Stating that they discussed many aspects of the issue with academicians in the workshop, in which issues such as strategies to prevent peer bullying and the role of families and schools in preventing peer bullying were discussed, Özer stated that the "results and recommendations" report of the workshop was prepared.
“Peer bullying” will be told in Family Schools
Minister Mahmut Özer stated that there was a proposal, which was also reflected in the workshop report, to carry out peer bullying studies by academics with a holistic approach, to act together with all school stakeholders such as school administrators, teachers, parents and auxiliary personnel in the formation of a healthy school climate, and to increase cooperation with relevant institutions and organizations. .
Stating that they will focus on studies on this issue, Minister Özer continued as follows: “We will constantly support our students, teachers and families in order to raise awareness against peer bullying. We will increase our activities to strengthen families, one of the most important elements of the process, in order to carry out studies with a holistic approach on peer bullying. We will give more weight to our Family School project work that we started. We will strengthen our programs in our Family Schools in this direction in order to raise awareness about peer bullying. We will continuously support students, teachers and families to raise awareness against peer bullying.”
“According to the final report of the workshop, we will implement our new plans”
Minister of National Education Mahmut Özer stated that the final report of the workshop included a proposal to “determine the risk situations of peer bullying in schools and plan prevention and intervention studies” and said: “We are planning to appoint new teachers to have a guidance counselor in each school. Currently, around 40 thousand guidance teachers and psychological counselors work in our schools. In our workshop report, there is a recommendation to start a program in order to increase the professional competence of these teachers in social emotional skills. We have also started work on this issue. In addition, we are disseminating our content specific to pre-school, primary school, secondary school and high school levels, prepared within the scope of the 'Psycho-education in Challenging Life Events Project'.”
Stating that the academicians reported that there is a need for guidance lesson hours at all levels in order to effectively implement developmental preventive and remedial guidance and psychological counseling services at school levels, Özer said that they put this issue on their agenda and discussed what could be done. Reminding that peer bullying is among the disciplinary crimes in high schools, Özer said, “We also discussed other arrangements that can be made in the legislation to prevent bullying and violence in schools. We will implement our new plans according to the final report of the workshop. When all these issues become clear, we will make it public. Our aim is to bring our education system to a much healthier point by strengthening the safe school climate. We are working hard for this.” gave his words.
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