Pap Ndiaye announces the launch of a national prevention campaign at the start of the school year

2023-06-14 01:16:32

Since the suicide of a 13-year-old teenager, Lindsay, victim of harassment in college, the Minister of Education has multiplied the announcements. During an exchange by videoconference with the heads of establishments and the inspectors of national education, Tuesday, June 13, Pap NDiaye made it known that school harassment would be the subject of a “great national prevention campaign” at the start of September.

This campaign will be carried out on television, on social networks and through posters, said the minister’s entourage to Agence France-Presse. Pap Ndiaye claims to be on the subject “the absolute priority for the start of the 2023 school year”, after several “deadly dramas” occurred this year, including Lindsay’s suicide.

After having received the parents of the teenager last week, the minister had asked thata “awareness hour” be organized starting this week in all middle school classes. An announcement criticized by the teaching world and in particular by the main union of school heads, the SNPDEN-UNSA, which had slammed: “The announcement effects won’t solve anything. »

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Faced with these education personnel, Pap Ndiaye assured that this awareness hour was not “a gas plant”but a way to “send messages again on the risks of social networks” and to allow each student “go on vacation with the numbers perfectly in mind” emergency 3018 (cyberbullying) and 3020 (school bullying).

A “harassment referent” in each establishment

Other measures are supposed to take effect at the start of the school year, in particular the designation of a “harassment referent” in each establishment and the extension of the anti-harassment program (Phare) to all schools, colleges and high schools.

If the unions have denounced the “precipitation” of the ministry, accused of« improvisation », Pap Ndiaye can on the other hand count on the support of the federations of parents of pupils, which he received on Friday. They have “positively received” the organization of an awareness hour. In a joint press release with the ministry, these associations state that they “will be part of the implementation of the fight against harassment”.

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The World with AFP