Filipino senior students seems to be most bullied among 79 countries surveyed worldwide.
This came out in the 2018 assessment test of Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to 650,000 students aged 15 years in 79 countries, including those from the Philippines.
Among Filipino students tested and surveyed by OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), 65 percent said they were bullied at least a few times a month.
And based on the data collected, it appears that bullying may have caused the Filipino senior student’s dismal performance as lowest in reading, mathematics and scientific literacy globally.
PISA fielded questions on the students’ well-being aside from conducting reading, mathematics and scientific assessment tests because it felt that it affects the overall academic performance of the students.
“Bullying can have adverse – and potentially long-lasting – effects on students’ performance at school and general well-being. Students who reported being frequently bullied scored 21 points lower in reading than students who did not report so,” PISA said in its report.
Students who are frequently bullied also feel “sad, scared and less satisfied with their lives.”
“These students were also more likely to have skipped school in the two weeks prior to the PISA test – an indication that they missed out on valuable learning opportunities,” it added.
Aside from bullying, PISA also asked students about other aspects on school environment.
About 26 percent of Filipino students agreed or strongly agreed that they feel lonely at school.
PISA also asked students worldwide whether their teachers support them in their schoolwork and is enthusiastic about teaching.
In the case of the classroom setting in the Philippines, 35 percent of Filipino senior high students said that in every or most lessons where English is the subject, their teacher need to wait a long time students to quiet down.
PISA noted a direct correlation between teacher’s enthusiasm to students’ score in reading. In most countries, PISA said, the more enthusiastic the teacher in the language of instruction, the higher the score of the students in reading.
Other notable findings on the Philippine inclusive environment survey:
- The level of parental involvement in school activities is higher than in OECD countries, on average.
- Majority of students in the Philippines — 72 percent — expressed a fear of failure. They worry what others think of them if they fail. Girls expressed greater fear of failure than boys, and this gender gap was considerably wider among top-performing students.
- Filipino students are one of the least optimistic with regard to attitude in changing their level of academic performance. Only 31 percent of students have growth mindset — i.e. they think they have the power to change their intelligence level.
- “Ensuring an inclusive environment at school is even more important in the Philippines than across OECD countries: every unit increase in the index of sense of belonging at school was associated with an increase of more than 20 score points in reading, compared to the OECD average of 4 score points,” PISA said.
