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Even as other schools continue to castigate the Alliance High School management over the recent allegations of bullying, details have emerged that Alliance was not an isolated case.
Instead, the entire country is topping the charts of global cases of bullying in schools.
The World Health Organisation (WHO)-backed Global School-based Student Health Survey has indicated that violence among adolescents is highly widespread in Kenyan schools.
The survey, which was conducted in collaboration with the United States Centres for Disease Control (CDC), ranked Kenya among countries having the highest levels of bullying.
The prevalence rates in these countries ranged between 43 and 74 per cent as adolescents aged between 13 and 17 years reported being victims of bullying more than once in two months.Nationally, bullying in Kenyan schools stands at 57 per cent for learners who get bullied on at least one day in a month.
However, Western Kenya schools lead the pack with about 66 per cent prevalence.
The report also indicated that bullying was done across genders with female adolescent students leading their male counterparts in the vice.
WHO bullying datasets within girls in the country stood at 57.4 per cent of those bullied on one or more days within a period of one month.According to Public Health Specialist and WHO consultant on adolescent health and behaviour Dr David Brown, bullying is often an act of malicious aggression characterised by the imbalance of power and conducted repeatedly over time.
“In many countries, bullying has been associated with more serious violent behaviours, such as weapon carrying, frequent fighting, verbal and physical abuse and coercion,” says Brown.