bullying

Managing bullying in schools is rarely a black-and-white issue, yet public reactions often assume it is. The recent Sengkang Green Primary case illustrates how public outrage, fuelled by viral posts, often collides with the far more complex realities of handling such incidents.

Sengkang Green Primary School made the news recently when the mother of a pupil alleged on Facebook in mid-August that her daughter had been bullied by three male classmates, that she had also received prank calls and death threats against her, her daughter and her husband, and that a written reply from the school was not forthcoming.

Within days, the Ministry of Education (MOE) released its findings: the boys were suspended, with one caned. A timeline detailed painstaking efforts by the school to manage the situation and keep parents updated. Yet by then, public anger had already boiled over.

The incident came just months after a viral video of Montfort Secondary School students fighting. Online comments on the Sengkang Green case demanded swift punishment of the boys, and accused teachers, school leaders and MOE of negligence. Some argued that parents had no choice but to go public to prod schools into action.

The problem with a zero-bullying goal

The reactions reveal three inherent tensions.

First, bullying touches a nerve because it violates our most basic expectation that children should learn in a safe and inclusive environment. Yet, the expectation that schools and MOE can deliver instant justice and eliminate bullying altogether is unrealistic.

For one thing, research underscores that bullying is not rare. About one in four upper primary pupils in a local study from 2018 to 2019 reported being bullied, with a smaller number indicating that they have been bullies, while a CNA survey earlier in 2025 found nearly 30 per cent of secondary school students had similar experiences.

Other countries face the same challenge. In Malaysia, the government is considering an Anti-Bullying Act after a 13-year-old schoolgirl died following alleged abuse by peers.

Bullying can be physical, verbal, relational (such as exclusion or gossip) or online. The last two – relational bullying and cyber bullying – are especially insidious because they are notoriously more difficult to detect, prove and resolve.

Although the public often expects teachers to remain central in students’ everyday lives and shoulder the primary responsibility of dealing with bullying, some ask whether teachers are in fact the best-placed individuals to investigate school bullying cases.

Here is an alternative: In 2023, South Korea announced plans to hire former police officers and teachers to take over investigations, shielding classroom teachers from parental complaints and allowing them to focus on teaching. If Singapore were to adopt a similar approach, considerable effort would be needed to establish clear legal and operational frameworks.

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The problem with blaming schools and teachers

Second, public debate on bullying wrongly assumes the end-goal is punishment instead of repair. Justice in bullying cases is not straightforward. While punitive measures like suspension and caning may satisfy demands for retribution, perpetrators and victims usually have to continue sharing the same school environment afterwards. 

Care must be exercised in helping the victims, while ensuring no one involved is subsequently ostracised. Teachers undertake all of these tasks while also taking into account the age-appropriacy of the follow-up actions.

This is why MOE stresses restorative justice – guiding perpetrators to take responsibility, repairing relationships, and avoiding entrenched labels such as “bully” and “victim”. Parents are also enlisted to mend ties.

Even so, teachers face an almost impossible balancing act: safeguarding victims, rehabilitating bullies, calming parents, and protecting the wider school community – all while staying accountable to a sceptical public.

MOE’s Character and Citizenship Education programme emphasises the teacher’s role in creating a caring and enabling school environment, building strong peer networks and teaching social-emotional skills. But this is easier said than done.

Teachers juggle and interact with hundreds of students across form class, subject teaching and co-curricular activities. They must tell intentional bullying apart from ordinary rudeness or thoughtlessness that may not constitute a desire to inflict intentional harm, gather information from multiple sources, and act fairly – all under intense time pressure. 

Many victims may not report incidents at all, preferring to confide in peers or fearing retaliation, until matters escalate. Cases are even harder to handle when parents are upset or when details are already circulating online, fuelling calls for immediate punishment. 

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The problem with social media

The Sengkang Green case highlights a third reality: once an allegation goes viral, the ministry is often forced on to the defensive, regardless of the facts. In this case, MOE’s official announcement of its investigation on Aug 20 had to compete with an earlier online narrative that had framed the school as negligent.

This is not new. After earlier cases at Montfort and Admiralty Secondary, MOE urged the public not to circulate videos of school fights. Then Second Minister for Education Maliki Osman even warned earlier in 2025 that those who post such videos could face consequences. But the online tide is hard to stem. Once outrage spreads, schools and the ministry are judged as much in the court of public opinion as on the merits of their actions.

If there is one takeaway from the Sengkang Green case, it is that bullying cases are a veritable minefield. Schools and MOE must navigate students’ welfare, parents’ expectations and public sentiment – all while managing investigations that are rarely clear-cut.

Needless to say, winning public confidence is a must. In every instance, MOE must demonstrate that clear, transparent and fair processes are in place, even for cases that don’t make the headlines. Communication with parents must also improve. As MOE director of schools Tan Chen Kee noted earlier in 2025, some schools still “need a little bit more guidance and support” in this area.

But we should also temper our expectations. Professor Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist at the University of Virginia, stated in an afterword in a 2024 handbook on school violence, bullying and safety that “bullying might be compared to a disease for which there appears to be no satisfactory vaccination or treatment despite decades of study”. 

The formal schooling years are a period in a child’s life where socialisation is the goal. That will necessarily involve some level of friction, as children get used to one another, find ways to get along, and manage the frictions that arise when they disagree or rub one another up the wrong way. 

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Can you bully-proof your child?

Why should we expect perfectly harmonious relations among children and adolescents in school, when adults themselves struggle with conflict and office politics in the workplace? Similarly, stemming bullying in schools is always a work in progress where best effort should not be so easily dismissed.

All this is not to absolve all of us from responsibility. Schools, parents and society at large must continue refining approaches, whether through preventive education, restorative justice or parental involvement.

At the end of the day, children are watching how adults respond. If they see knee-jerk blame and retribution, they learn one lesson. If they see the public respond to situations with fairness, care and accountability, they learn another. That, perhaps, is the most important long-term test of how we deal with bullying.

Jason Tan is associate professor, policy, curriculum and leadership, at the National Institute of Education.