State Duma deputies are concerned about bullying of schoolchildren: a school friendliness index has been developed

55,000 psychologists to prevent bullying will cost the country 2.3 billion rubles monthly

A group of State Duma deputies proposed introducing a “School Friendliness Index”: conducting annual anonymous surveys among students on the State Services about the prevalence of bullying and bullying in school, on their basis, identifying the most disadvantaged schools and sending educational psychologists there to prevent bullying among students. However, it won’t be cheap.

“The introduction of the Friendliness Index will make it possible to obtain reliable information about the prevalence of bullying in specific educational organizations,” State Duma deputy from the New People party Anna Skroznikova explained the initiative to MK. – Students will be able to report incidents of bullying honestly and openly without fear of being victimized by the bully. This will allow the authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation to understand the reasons for the prevalence of bullying in a particular school and take active measures to attract school psychologists to work with certain schools and groups of students.

Identifying the most problematic schools will now make it possible to reduce the negative consequences of bullying for students in the absence of the possibility of establishing standards for the staffing level of educational psychologists in each general education organization.

– According to a survey of a number of organizations, 72% of Russian schoolchildren do not like studying at school. According to experts, the main reasons for a negative attitude towards school are bullying and bullying by peers (bullying), the attitude of teachers towards children, lack of interest in studying, laziness, strict discipline, and a heavy workload.

According to other studies, 80% of teenagers note that the most common place where they encounter bullying is school. According to former Children’s Rights Commissioner Anna Kuznetsova, almost 100% of schoolchildren are bullied by peers during their education. At the same time, there is a categorical shortage of school psychologists in educational institutions who can help resolve this problem.

On this occasion, deputies of the faction wrote a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, in which they asked the Deputy Prime Minister to assess the feasibility of introducing the School Friendliness Index and, if this initiative is supported, to instruct the relevant executive authorities to implement it.

“To solve the problem of the shortage of school psychologists, the Ministry of Education of Russia has prepared a draft order to establish a standard staffing level of educational psychologists in organizations of preschool, general and secondary vocational education in a number proportional to the number of all students (project ID 137396 on the portal regulation.gov.ru).

However, according to the negative conclusion of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development on the draft order, its adoption will require an additional 55 thousand new employees to be hired for educational organizations, and the monthly expenses of schools alone could amount to about 2.3 billion rubles (approximately 27.3 million rubles per 1 subject of the Russian Federation) . Thus, the draft order of the Ministry of Education will most likely not be adopted in the near future due to the need for additional funding, and the problems of the shortage of school psychologists and bullying in schools will remain relevant.

In this regard, I consider it necessary to consider the possibility of conducting annual anonymous surveys among students in general education organizations about the prevalence of bullying and bullying. Based on the data obtained, it will be possible to compare general education organizations based on the index, to identify “at-risk” schools and, conversely, schools that have the best practices.

Such an index could be called the School Friendliness Index. It would be possible to collect such data through government information systems, for example, “State Services” or “My School”. Accordingly, authorities will have the opportunity to identify the most disadvantaged general education organizations and send educational psychologists to such educational organizations to prevent bullying among students,” says Anna Skroznikova’s letter to Tatyana Golikova.