Ministry of Education Denounced Bullying in All Forms  

Over the past week, we’ve been covering a troubling case of alleged bullying at Saint John’s College that left thirteen-year-old Dominick Alvarado seriously injured and bedridden. This incident comes on the heels of another in Stann Creek District back in mid-June. These events have sparked public outrage and raised serious concerns about the safety of children in Belizean schools. We spoke with Dian Maheia, the C.E.O. of the Ministry of Education, to get some insight into how the ministry is addressing this critical issue.

 

On the phone: Dian Maheia, CEO, Ministry of Education

“So the Ministry of Education categorically denounces any and all acts of bullying. We are obviously very concerned for any student who is a victim of bullying of any form.  We recognize that bullying. Activities that these actions are indications of deeper challenges, unfortunately,  and we recognize that there’s only so much that anyone person can do, but I think these activities highlight the need for responses, continued campaigns in our schools. All our high schools run anti-bullying campaigns. They run as part of their life skills activities that they, some of them, in particular, take the approach of teaching kindness and promoting kindness campaigns. We also see this as proof of the need for counselors in all our schools. We need. Counselors, the ministry is committed to first to secondary schools to ensuring that each secondary school has a non-teaching counselor. So that’s something we’re working toward. We recognize that we also need counselors for primary school. We need to train our counselors and provide support for them. And then, of course, on the biggest level, we recognize the importance of family support of community support, working together so that we could just really build a belief that is going to be more kind and more accepting and more, more inclusive, more helpful.”