Education Officer for Zone 1 Rolston Nickeo said the boy seen fighting with a girl in a viral cell phone video was only defending himself.
Nickeo came out in support of the boy after several people who viewed the video labeled the male student a bully.
The Ministry of Education earlier confirmed that the incident happened last Monday in a Grade 6 class at Golden Grove Primary School.
“Even though he gives plenty problems at times, he was never the aggressor in this case and it was not the case of bullying at all,” Nikeo said.
“What most persons would have seen is a middle where the tape started, right, where the young girl’s friend taped it, where you actually saw the boy pushing back, pushing her off or attempting not to fight.
He said the girl started the fight over a pen during break “and “kept going after him.”
“He was actually trying, if you want to put it this way, defending himself to tell her stop because he was bigger than her and could have actually beat her if he wanted.”
“You would have seen also he even took a chair, which he should not have, to try to ‘shy’. He never hit her with the chair, she said, he never touched her, right, to try to frighten her not to hit him”, the education officer explained.
“We applauded him, in the sense, because we know who the child is, of trying to say I don’t want to fight. Stop.”
The school reportedly introduced several punitive measures, including banning cell phone use and restricting students to supervised indoor breaks.
VIDEO: ‘Extremely Disturbing’ case of bullying at a local primary school
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