Singapore has third-highest rate of bullying among students in the world

When it comes to incidents of bullying in schools, teenagers in Singapore experience it far more than their peers in 50 other countries, according to a study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Coming in third in the rankings of bullying experienced by students in school, Singapore follows first place Latvia and New Zealand, which came in second.

This analysis was part of the third volume of data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), a three-yearly study conducted by the OECD.

Carried out in 2015, the study asked students how frequently they were exposed to different types of bullying according to a four-point scale, which ranged from “never or almost never” to “once a week of more”. The categories included being left out, made fun of, threatened, hit or pushed around, having awful rumors spread about them, and having property taken by other students. Physical, verbal and relational bullying were measured.

Based on an aggregate of the responses, countries were listed on an index that saw South Korea come in last with the least amount of bullying cases reported. Britain was sixth on the list, Finland came in 14th, and Hong Kong took 16th place.

In Singapore, 5,825 students were randomly chosen from 168 public schools, and 290 students from nine private schools, to take the computer-based test. According to the results, the most common form of bullying here was students making fun of each other. About 18.3 percent admitted they experienced this at least several times in a month, while the OECD average was 10.9 percent. Those who were left out on purpose at least a couple times a month made up 11.9 percent of the students, which was high compared to the OECD average of 7.2 percent.

Singapore saw 14.5 percent of students saying they were frequently bullied, as compared to the OECD average of 8.9 percent.

The study also indicated that bullying in Singapore could occur more frequently in schools that had a poor disciplinary climate and teachers that students perceived as unfair.