OECD Bullying In A Nice Little Country - the dark side

This is the reality of Aotearoa/NZ today. Look out for the companion piece that tells the same story if different choices were made. You decide.

There are very few things New Zealand does better than anyone else in the world. We’ve surrendered the America’s Cup, our teachers are fleeing to Australia like possums from a spotlight, and our sheep are sick of being metaphors. But rejoice, patriots! We still dominate the global leaderboard in at least one category school bullying. That’s right - we’re number one!

According to the 2024 OECD Economic Survey, New Zealand leads the civilised world in kids getting belted, belittled and broken on school grounds. A full 15% of students report being frequently bullied, which doesn’t count the ones who’ve learned silence is safer. And 43% of our school principals, likely suffering mild PTSD themselves, say bullying happens weekly. At this point, it’s less a discipline issue and more a scheduled extracurricular activity.

What does this say about us as a society? That we’re committed to preparing children for adulthood in Aotearoa, where you’re ignored by government agencies, underpaid, gaslit, and then told to practise mindfulness to fix it. Bullying, it turns out, is our nation’s most authentic life-skills programme.

The Price of Looking Away

The impact? Oh, just the usual trauma, self-harm, shattered self-worth, anxiety, depression, suicide attempts, educational failure, and lifelong economic hardship. But who’s counting? Certainly not the Ministry of Education, who seem to think “student wellbeing” means handing out a laminated feelings chart and hoping for the best.

The data tells us schools with rampant bullying score 47 points lower in science. Which makes sense. It’s hard to concentrate on chemical equations when you’re bracing for your daily humiliation.

Government Action - A Long History of Failure to Act

For decades now, governments of all stripes have responded to bullying with a masterclass in parliamentary pantomime

• A review here

• A working group there

• Maybe a cartoon possum with a slogan “Kindness is cool, kids!”

And then - nothing. A shallow exhale of indifference wrapped in a velvet press release.

They talk about “systems-level responses” and “community engagement frameworks” while kids are being tormented into silence in every second hallway. Teachers, who already double as social workers, nurses, and emotional sponges, are told to “build resilience” in students. Translated from Beehive-speak “Make them harder to break, we’re not fixing the floor.”

The Children’s Commissioner, now reborn as Mana Mokopuna (a lovely name that hides how under-resourced they remain), calls for data, support and systemic change. A bold stance, destined to be filed under “maybe next Budget” by a Minister for Nothing in Particular.

The Long Fallout Generational Trauma with a Curriculum Code

You want to talk about the economy? Here's a lesson

• Traumatised kids are more likely to leave school early.

• Early school leavers are more likely to earn less, get sick more, need state support, and suffer from mental health issues.

• These costs - personal, social, and economic, compound over time.

But Treasury doesn’t model the GDP impact of a broken spirit. It can’t quantify what it means to sit in a classroom where you feel like prey. There’s no spreadsheet cell for soul erosion.

Instead, we’ll spend millions on reactive mental health services while actively manufacturing more need for them. It’s efficient in a perverse way. A harm economy, fully subsidised by our children.

Official Government Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“Delivering Smiles Government Reaffirms Commitment to Multi-Year Bullying Review Process”

The Ministry of Education, in partnership with the Ministry of Child Symbolism and the Department of Cultural Optics, has today announced a bold new initiative Project Be Nice - A Pathway to Potential Kindness.

This transformative approach will involve the creation of

• A multi-agency Cross-Disciplinary Strategy Forum

• A series of “What Is Bullying?” digital workshops

• And a nationwide “Kindness Koha” campaign encouraging students to write affirmations on sticky notes

“New Zealand remains committed to leading the world in educational experiences,” said the Hon. Passive McShrug, Minister of Delay. “We take bullying seriously. That’s why we’ve initiated a 14-month consultation process to create a roadmap toward the drafting of a proposed framework for potential solutions.”

The initiative comes with a $312,000 budget allocation for branding, facilitation, and beanbags.

Letter to the Editor – Principal of a Rural School

To the Editor,

I run a small school in the Far North. Last term, one of our Year 7 students tried to hang himself behind the bike shed. He survived, but he's broken. We all are.

That was our wake-up call, though truthfully we’ve been waking up to this for years. Bullying here is constant. We’ve reported it. We’ve held assemblies. We’ve begged for support. We’ve filled out forms and hosted outside facilitators and downloaded kindness apps. Nothing changes.

We don’t need another pilot. We need trained staff. Social workers. Onsite mental health professionals. And funding to keep the ones we already have. What we get instead is another acronym, another poster, another kick in the guts disguised as “policy evolution.”

What hope do our kids have when the adults in charge are so scared of doing anything real?

— Moana Rika,
Principal, Te Kainga School

Letter to the Editor – Survivor, Now 21

To the Editor,

When I was 13, I was bullied every day. For how I looked. For not being good at sports. For being too quiet. I told the school counsellor. She told me to “focus on my strengths.” My strength, as it turned out, was pretending to be invisible.

By the time I left school, I was on antidepressants and seeing a private psychologist because public mental health waitlists were full. I never sat NCEA. I couldn’t walk into a room without panic. I still can’t.

What gets me is how normal it all was. Everyone knew who the bullies were. Everyone said “he’s just like that.” But no one ever made him stop. He’s doing a management degree now.

I didn’t write this for sympathy. I wrote it because if we don’t shout this into the ears of every politician who’s ever said “we take this seriously,” they’ll keep thinking silence means success.

Silence, in my case, almost killed me.

— Levi S.
Dunedin