BULLYING PROBLEM IN A NIGERIAN SECONDARY SCHOOL:
AN EDUCATIONAL MANGER’S SOLUTION Abstract
Bullying problem is pervasive and a serious concern for all stakeholders of education who desire to make school climate a safe haven. This paper is thus moved by this desire, to identify bullying and prevalence of bullying among secondary school students in Nigeria as a matter of urgent attention. The paper brings into concrete terms, bullying situation in Hibiscus College (pseudonym) a secondary school in Nigeria and prescribes a series of decision making process for solving the problem. These include, provision of helping services for schools; sensitization and capacity building of stakeholders in bullying detection and prevention; implementation of bully buster programme; and improvement of students’ level of compassion and empathy through empathy training. Introduction
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students enrolled in it. The main purpose of the school is to develop the student through knowledge acquisition, so that he/she may become a social being. By this, the student is expected to learn how to relate with fellow students, teachers and others in the school on the one hand, and to live in a harmonious way (by blending with societal values) in the society on the other hand. The school is also expected to be a place where students should feel safe and secure, and where they can count on being treated with respect. The reality, however, is that only few students or pupils can harmoniously blend with their school mates without experiencing violence in the school (Fajoju, 2009). Although the school had always remained one of the safest places, next to the home in a child’s life, one wonders if this still holds sway in our present society given the ever increasing spate of violence in our schools. Violence in schools is an issue