The Minister of Education Pap Ndiaye called Thursday for the mobilization of parents of students on the issue of cyberbullying, especially before the summer vacation, considering that the school “can not do everything”.
Established as a national priority after the suicide in May of Lindsay, 13, school harassment will be the subject of a major national prevention campaign at the start of the school year, promised earlier this week Pap Ndiaye.
After having received the parents of the teenager last week, the minister had asked that “an hour of awareness” be organized this week in all college classes in France.
In this context, during a trip to the Antoine-Watteau college, in Nogent-sur-Marne, near Paris, Pap Ndiaye told the press that “the school can and must do its job, but the school cannot do everything”.
“We also need to mobilize parents on the issue of cyberbullying, because we cannot monitor what students do in the evening when they return home, or during the holidays,” he added.
The minister assured, after having exchanged with them, that “the four major federations of parents of students” are “sensitive” to it.
“At the start of the school year, we will have the opportunity to speak very clearly and even quite firmly to the parents of students in all friendship of course about their rights, but also about their duties”, he insisted, judging it necessary “parental cooperation”.
“Cyberbullying is ruining the lives of too many of our young people, goes well beyond the borders of school unfortunately, since it knows no limits in time and geography”. It is therefore necessary, added the Minister, “to sensitize our pupils, on the eve of the holidays, because it can be prolonged during the summer”.
Pap Ndiaye organized an interministerial meeting on harassment at school and online at the ministry on Tuesday in order to prepare a common mobilization, at the request of the Prime Minister.
“On these issues, it is important to work together,” he defended. He demanded “collaborative work”: “better liaison between National Education, the police and justice services” but also “links with digital technology and with the major social networking platforms”.
“We are accelerating and we are insisting on this intergovernmental dimension” because “the question of bullying at school must be seized head on,” he assured.
06/15/2023 19:58:41 – Nogent-sur-Marne (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
