Schools in Banska Bystrica region to test app for reporting bullying

The Education Ministry in cooperation with Banska Bystrica region are launching a pilot project at 20 secondary schools to tackle bullying, namely a mobile app allowing any student to anonymously report bullying, either as a victim or witness, and safely communicate with school support teams, Education Minister Tomas Drucker (Hlas-SD) and Banska Bystrica region governor Ondrej Lunter reported during the opening of the new academic year on Monday.

The Minister stressed in this regard that a safe environment at schools is among his ministry's priorities, noting that reporting bullying isn't "snitching" but a sign of maturity.

According to Lunter, an audit carried out by his region has yielded alarming results, showing that no bullying is taking place at regional schools, save for one exception. "That's like claiming that there's no corruption in top-level politics. We all know that the phenomenon of bullying is present in society, but we pretend it doesn't exist," Lunter explained why the region took the initiative to join the project.

The app was developed by three Czech students who didn't know how to deal with bullying in 2017. Since then, the app has been used by 33 percent of schools in the Czech Republic.

Source: TASR