Guidelines must be reformed

THE salutary lesson to be drawn from the bullying case in which a 10-year-old boy was awarded damages of €10,000 is the urgent need for teachers to be pro-active in tackling this problem.

In some instances, according to the National Parents' Council, teachers have actually picked on vulnerable students, effectively creating a climate where other pupils see bullying as acceptable.

Yet another aspect of this problem was pinpointed yesterday by Education Minister Mary Hanafin when she launched a website teaching children how to be safe on the internet.

Ms Hanafin revealed that 26% of teenage children said they had received threatening mobile phone messages, largely from people they knew.

This underlines the urgent need for radical reform of 1993 guidelines on bullying, long before bullying by mobile phone text message became prevalent.