Education Ministry launches internal investigation over bullying of public school student in Georgia’s west

The Georgian Education Ministry on Saturday said its internal audit had started an investigation into the school director’s possible misconduct over the bullying incident towards a public school student in Georgia’s western region of Imereti.

The Ministry’s statement followed the story spread in social media, which said that students of the school had bullied and threatened their schoolmate, “encouraging the minor to self-harm”.

We would like to inform the public that as soon as the fact has become public, all relevant structural units of the Education Ministry, including the Center for Psychosocial Services of the Mandatory Service, were engaged in the case, and psychologists are already working with both children and their parents”, the body stressed.

It also added that the Ministry would be involved in studying all aspects of the incident.

Earlier today, the Interior Ministry also said it had launched an investigation into the matter. As the minor's defender claims, the ninth-grade girl was “systematically abused by her classmates, after which she informed her family about the incident”.

The minor’s side also claimed that the school administration was aware of the fact.