School counsellors need to beef up knowledge to tackle student bullies

School counsellors should improve their knowledge to enable them to tackle bullying among students.

Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Rohani Abdul Karim said solving the issue merely by punishing the students involved was no longer a practical option, but rather to be complemented by a continuous counselling process.

"Bullying does not only involve physical harm, but can also occur in the form of cyber bullying. We have provided special training to school counsellors to tackle this issue.

"In a bid to tackle bullying, we not only need to impose punishment, but also to provide counselling," she told reporters Wednesday.

She said this in response to the recent bullying incident as shown in a video clip which went viral on Facebook since yesterday.

The clip, which lasted four minutes and 37 seconds, showed a group of five students assaulting a group of nine other students and had attracted widespread condemnation from social media users.

Maktab Mahmud of Padang Terap in Kuala Nerang, Kedah, however, had denied that one of its students was involved.

Earlier, Rohani witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the National Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN) and the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) at the National Syarie Counselling Seminar here.

The MoU was aimed at providing syarie-based counselling as an effort to help Muslims facing marriage and family issues.

Also present were Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom, Jakim director-general Datuk Othman Mustapha and LPPKN director-general Datuk Siti Norlasiah Ismail.