Disciplinary problems: 402 schools under observation

He said of the total, 311 schools were in the category of schools with disciplinary issues while 91 others were categorised as 'hot spots' or with potential to become problematic schools.

An action committee comprising the Royal Malaysian Police, the Malaysian Armed Forces, the Parents and Teachers'' Association (PTA) and non-governmental organisations had been set up to implement necessary activities and programmes to prevent the problems from getting worse.

"This classification is important to help the committee in conducting observations and intervention on the schools," he told a press conference here today.

Chong said over the past five years, the annual rate of students involved in disciplinary problems stood at around two per cent.

Among the disciplinary problems recorded were criminal behaviour, bullying, obscenity, truancy and minor cases such as lackadaisical attitude towards self-care and time management.

"We view disciplinary cases seriously and the State Education Department, together with the District Education Offices and schools are reminded to improve their focused interventions to address misconduct among students," he said.

He said truancy was the main contributor to disciplinary issues at schools and to address the problem, the ministry had set the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to reduce the case to 0.02 per cent from the current KPI at 0.04 per cent.

On the allegation that bullying had become rampant and more worrying, Chong said it was inaccurate as only 0.06 per cent of such cases were recorded for the past five years.

"Bullying in schools has three main categories namely one that involves language (abusive language), physical (pushing/shoving), gestures (eyes, body language), but a new category is currently being studied, that is cyber bullying, which involves comments made against the victims on Facebook or other social media platforms that will have adverse effects on that particular individuals," he said.