All college students in France will have to follow this week an hour of awareness on “harassment and social networks”, indicated Sunday the Minister of National Education. 20 minutes tells you all about this new hour in the college program when Pap Ndiaye, had recently promised to strengthen the fight against this scourge after the suicide in May of Lindsay, a teenager from college in Pas-de-Calais.
What is this harassment awareness hour?
The principals of the 7,000 colleges (3.4 million students in total) must this week organize this hour of awareness of harassment “in conjunction with the educational teams”. Pap Ndiaye, Minister of Education, will bring together on Tuesday by videoconference the 14,000 heads of establishments, as well as the inspectors of National Education (IEN) or even the rectors, to “remind them of all the levers at their disposal” and “collect their feedback from the field,” the ministry said in a statement.
“This hour will be an opportunity to recall the way in which the use of social networks can accentuate the phenomena of harassment” and “to underline the responsibility of each” in the use of these networks, underlined Friday Pap Ndiaye.
In what context is this special hour launched?
Recognizing that National Education had “still a long way to go” on this issue, Pap Ndiaye had promised on June 6 additional means to fight against bullying at school. Also under pressure from the family of Lindsay, 13, a teenager who ended her life on May 12, the government announced last week that the fight against harassment would be the “top priority” for the start of the 2023 school year.
Received by Brigitte Macron, Betty Gervois, Lindsay’s mother, was offered the role of ambassador for the pHARe program to fight against harassment. The subject was also on the menu of consultations carried out since Friday, and until Monday, with the unions, the federations of parents of pupils, but also the Authority for the regulation of audiovisual and digital communication (ARCOM) and the leaders social networks, the same source said.
What are the figures concerning school bullying?
In France, in 2022, according to the Ministry of National Education, 10% of adolescents say they are being bullied at school. A phenomenon that is growing more and more on social networks where 40% of young Internet users regularly face cyberbullying. As for suicide, it accounts for 16% of deaths among young people aged 15 to 24. Lindsay is not the first student to end her life because of bullying. In January, a 13-year-old child, Lucas, committed suicide in the Vosges. The schoolboy’s relatives had denounced acts of harassment, revealing the mockery and homophobic insults of which he had said he was the victim by other students at his school. Let us also remember Dinah, who ended her life at the age of 14, in the Haut-Rhin
And after ?
On June 29, the Minister of National Education will bring together those responsible for the fight against harassment in each academy, “in order to recall the procedures to be followed and the new measures which will have to be implemented”.
According to the supervisory ministry, a referent on harassment – nurse, main education council (CPE) or teacher – must in particular be appointed “in each establishment” at the start of the school year. “We are going to further protect pupil victims in primary school by opening up by decree the possibility of removing from school a pupil who has been the perpetrator of harassment. We will make it compulsory to train staff against harassment, we will increase the means of alert and listening platforms, ”listed the head of government, Elisabeth Borne, on June 6.
The pHARe program provides for the training of a reference team of at least five people per middle school and per primary school district, the appointment and training of at least ten student ambassadors per middle school and ten hours of training per year for children . Pap Ndiaye also indicated that the ministry was going to “put additional resources on 3020 and 3018”, the two emergency help numbers for families and victims (3020) and on cyberbullying (3018), without more than details. He also said that he “enjoined the heads of establishments to systematically contact, in the event of proven harassment, with the public prosecutor, with the judicial authorities. »