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The Ministry of Education will be meeting with all government boarding school heads in the Central and Western division next week.

This is to address the issue of bullying in schools.

Education Minister, Rosy Akbar says for now they provide counselling to students who are involved in such acts however, they are looking at strengthening some of their policies to curb this issue.

Akbar says they are also looking at their student management behaviour policy to hold parents responsible.

“ So this other policy that is coming in place is parental engagement policy because we see at the ministerial level the lack of engagement parents have and I think if we can strengthen that a lot of discipline problems that we have in schools and understood by parents why their child is behaving like that etc. Most of the cases take a lot of time in schools when we involve counsellors. So I want parents to understand exactly what their children are doing in school as well.”

The Education Minister had earlier highlighted that such incidents affect other students as well.

Akbar confirmed to FBC News yesterday that 15 students allegedly involved in two separate bullying incidents at a prominent school in Tailevu have been expelled from boarding.

She had said that these students will now stay with their parents and travel to school as day scholars.