Anti-bullying intervention programme and guidelines for secondary schools in Namibia
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Date
2020
Authors
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Publisher
University of Namibia
Abstract
For several decades, bullying has been highlighted as one of the threats to effective
teaching and learning. Many research studies have been conducted in developed
countries, especially in Norway and the USA, with the aim of preventing and managing bullying at school level. In Namibia, research conducted by Sam (2011) revealed that the prevalence of bullying in both rural and urban schools was high, but that there was no intervention programme to assist victims and perpetrators, as well as witnesses of bullying. The study found a gap in knowledge regarding a programme that could be utilised for anti-bullying purposes; existing anti-bullying programmes available were not suitable for the Namibian context as they had been developed in the western world where the school set up was different. One of the recommendations suggested in that study was that a programme aiming at combating bullying in Namibian schools should be developed. The present study arose from that recommendation, as well as reports from local media indicating the serious state of bullying in schools. Based on that, the development of an anti-bullying programme employed in this study was given birth. This study zoomed in on the current status of bullying activities with the purpose of creating awareness about bullying, developing resilient skills among bullied learners, as well as finding prevention and management strategies to combat bullying at secondary
school level in Namibia. Employing a mixed methods quasi-experimental design, the researcher conducted the study in four urban/town secondary schools in Namibia. Twenty-six key informants, consisting of Life Skills teachers and Learners' Representative Council members participated in the development of an anti-bullying programme which was later employed in the Life Skills lessons. Eighty-one learners in Grade 9 participated in the implementation of the programme, and they participated in pre- and post-tests by completing questionnaires. The evaluation on the programme was done by the Life Skills teachers who implemented the intervention programme in their lessons. The findings of the study revealed that a large number of learners were experiencing bullying every day in Namibian secondary schools. All types of bullying identified were recorded in all the schools where the study was conducted. The reasons for bullying were different from school to school, but the most common ones were identified as poor school rules regarding bullying and a lack of anti-bullying programmes. It was identified that schools had no prevention and intervention mechanisms in place in order to combat bullying, other than their school rules which did not address bullying. The impact of bullying was felt by the majority of learners. Learners highlighted that bullying did affect teaching and learning, and bullied learners were more likely to drop out of school. Bullying led to poor academic performance, criminal activities and suicidal thoughts for some learners. After the intervention of the anti-bullying programme, there was a clear decrease in physical bullying activities experienced by victims but other types of bullying perpetrated against victims either increased or remained the same. The findings also indicate that more learners became aware of the different types of bullying and were able to identify them in the post-test as opposed to pre-test findings. Cyber bullying remained a major concern due to internet access by many learners and the many social media sites or platforms which allow bullying to thrive. Some learners indicated that they were able to deal with bullying after the intervention of the programme as they had learnt new skills and knowledge regarding the ways in which to handle bullying. Despite the new skills learnt, the well-being of learners at schools was still at stake as bullying continued unabated, and it continued causing short and long term social and emotional, as well as academic damage to learners.
Description
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Education)
Keywords
Anti-bullying, Bullying in schools, Life skills teachers, Namibian education, Namibian schools