WATCHING an online video of an assault on a 13-year-old girl made Dr Lily Neo nauseous.

The girl was punched and stripped by other girls in the video clip, which was later circulated on the Internet. Relating this in Parliament on Monday, the Jalan Besar MP pointed out that bullying in schools is a serious problem and the Ministry of Education (MOE) should do more to tackle it.

She also cited surveys, such as the one done by the Coalition against the Bullying of Children and Youth (Cabcy), which found that 94.7 per cent of the 4,000 students polled had been bullied.

The school bully has not only been 'working overtime', but is also becoming 'bolder and brainier', she said. Bullying has led to one reported suicide and 'a significant number of hospitalisations', noted Dr Neo, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Education.

To combat the problem, she suggested that the MOE train teachers to deal with bullying as well as provide more information on the issue.

The Ministry could consider implementing anti-bullying policies and work more closely with groups like the Singapore Children's Society, which runs anti-bullying programmes.

Added Dr Neo: 'MOE should sweep away the years of inaction which has caused pain and anguish to both students and parents.'

In response, Minister of State for Education Lui Tuck Yew said his ministry took a serious view of bullying. While he agreed that more could be done to train teachers to deal with bullying, he said statistics on this vary.

These depend on each survey's methodology and definition of bullying. MOE?s statistics, which put the instance of bullying in 2006 as 3.7 per cent per 1,000 students, reflect only serious offences.

He noted that this does not capture other instances of bullying, such as name calling or exclusion.

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