It is good news indeed that Secretary for Education and Manpower Arthur Li Kwok-cheung has consulted with the chief executive and declared a zero-tolerance policy regarding bullying in Hong Kong's schools. If only he realised the scale of the problem and the impenetrable walls of silence that surround it. Bullying, in one form or another, is a daily event in far too many Hong Kong schools. It is saddening to think that it is only when tapes of incidents appear on the internet that schools might be under some obligation to acknowledge that the problem exists. The principal of the school at the centre of a recent case was widely quoted as saying that, as the victim had not complained, she had decided not to contact the police. Let's face it, schools, parents, teachers, students - and just about everyone else in this retribution-fearing city - are loath to contact the authorities about anything they consider 'in-house'. I know of one principal who would not even call an ambulance when a student broke his leg. Instead, to avoid any adverse publicity, he drove the boy to hospital. It is one thing to boldly pronounce zero tolerance, it is quite another to change the mindset of thousands of teachers to, basically, act on their own in defiance of publicity-shy principals. When I taught in a low-banded school in East Kowloon, I stopped a gang of at least a dozen boys from kicking another who was writhing on the ground. When I asked my colleagues for assistance, they said I should never have got involved. The victim later refused to 'confess' that he had been beaten, despite his broken spectacles, torn shirt and bloodied arm. My written report to the school's 'discipline team', in which I had identified a number of the assailants, was never followed up. I was informed that there was 'no evidence' that the incident had ever occurred. The following year, another student was attacked by a gang of bullies in a classroom. This time, a cleaver was used, and the victim required hospital treatment. Have education officials forgotten the horrific torture and murder of a schoolboy in 1997? All the perpetrators were students from neighbouring schools. Then, as now, the violence was loudly condemned, but no serious attempt was made to investigate the aggressive climates of the three schools. There have been numerous stories in this newspaper regarding the bullying of students and teachers - by both students and teachers - but there has yet to be any obvious Hong Kong-wide programme to address the problem. In other educational jurisdictions, notably Britain and New Zealand, schools with recurring violence are singled out for sweeping changes to their administrative structures, and drastic reforms of their teaching programmes. In Hong Kong, the Education and Manpower Bureau has all but relinquished its direct authority over school management, preferring to leave most matters of policy and procedure in the hands of individual school management bodies and all-powerful principals. In far too many low-banded schools, the daily climate is one of fear and aggression. Administrators with the direct power to hire and fire can bully and berate their teachers, and teachers can bully and berate their students. So, is it any wonder that students bully and browbeat each other? As a native English-speaking teacher (NET) in two local schools in Hong Kong, I reported numerous cases of students giving others the 'silent treatment', placing glue on chairs, refusing to sit with or work with newcomers and hurling abuse at students with disabilities. My colleagues either found my concerns amusing, or they dismissed them outright, choosing instead to blame the victims for 'bringing it on themselves'. What constitutes 'bullying'? Does it have to be physical? What about the all-too-familiar situations in which students are forced to hand over money or food? What about the students who are forced to act as 'mules' to carry the schoolbags of bullies from class to class? What about the ceaseless, niggling kind of abuse that makes some students' lives a misery? Unfortunately, in Hong Kong, school violence tends to be seen in the same light as domestic violence. It just 'doesn't exist' until it finds its way into the media and draws the attention of public officials. On an everyday basis, it is seen as an in-house problem in which no outside interference is either requested or appreciated. No Hong Kong school will willingly report incidents of bullying and risk drawing unwanted attention. I fear that the call for zero tolerance will merely translate into zero reporting, as long as the schools are more interested in protecting their names than in providing caring, safe and stimulating learning environments for young people. The added presence of many untrained teachers, all fearful of losing their jobs in a shrinking market, almost guarantees that the walls of silence will remain firmly wrapped around the secretive world of Hong Kong schools for the foreseeable future. Pauline Bunce is a former NET teacher in Hong Kong
