UN urged to act on 'weakness' in recording of bullying in schools

Human rights campaigners are calling on the United Nations to take action to help address a "significant weakness'' in Scotland's education policy.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has raised its concerns with Education Secretary John Swinney over the lack of any requirement for schools or education authorities to monitor incidents of bullying linked to factors such as race, religion, gender or sexuality.

EHRC Scotland director Alastair Pringle is to also press the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the issue at a meeting in Geneva on Thursday.

In a letter to the Education Secretary, Mr Pringle stressed the "problem of identity-based bullying in Scottish schools is not a new one''.

He told Mr Swinney: "Evidence suggests that bullying and harassment - whether it is based on a pupil's ethnicity, sexual orientation, sex, disability, faith or other protected characteristic - can lead to poorer attainment and attendance for pupils affected.''

Mr Pringle continued: "We have two concerns about this. Firstly, unless schools monitor and record such incidents they have no way of knowing if actions that they are taking to prevent identity-based bullying are successful.

"Secondly, because this data is not shared with other local partners such as the police or community safety partnerships, we have an incomplete picture of the prevalence of incidents aggravated by prejudice across the country.''

Liberal Democrat education spokesman Tavish Scott recently revealed that around 3,000 racist incidents have been reported in Scotland's schools since 2011.

Figures obtained using freedom of information requests by the party uncovered almost 2,000 racist incidents in primary schools and 1,000 in secondary schools over the period 2011/12 to 2015/16.

Mr Pringle said however that research by the EHRC, the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights, LGBT Youth and Stonewall Scotland has indicated that "not all schools in Scotland have a system in place to monitor and report on incidents, and few education authorities make such data publicly available''.

The EHRC will use the Geneva talks to call for "improvements in the recording and reporting of all forms of identity-based bullying in all schools'', he said.

He added: "Currently there is no requirement for schools or education authorities in Scotland to monitor or report on identity-based bullying that takes place on their premises.

"We believe that this is a significant weakness in education policy and we are calling for this to become a requirement placed on every education authority in Scotland.''

The EHRC is calling on the UN Committee to ask the Scottish Government to require schools to collect "qualitative and quantitative data on identity-based bullying''.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Bullying of any form is entirely unacceptable and we need to be vigilant in challenging any racist, homophobic and abusive behaviour in our schools.

"At present, all schools and local authorities should have anti-bullying policies in place. However, recording incidents of bullying and the circumstances around them is not consistent across Scotland.

"Later this year we will publish an updated anti-bullying strategy that will introduce new guidance for local authorities and schools to ensure that bullying of all kinds - including prejudice-based incidents - is recorded accurately and monitored effectively.

"Better recording of bullying at a local level will help the appropriate body - be it a school or local authority - tailor their policies to local circumstances as well as monitoring and improving the effectiveness of their anti-bullying policies. This will continue to be supported by respectme, Scotland's anti-bullying service.

"We will respond to the letter from EHRC in due course.''

• Scottish News