$4m bullying social media campaign
A $4 MILLION social media campaign to help parents and children deal with bullying in schools seemed to be the only concrete outcome of a forum on the issue in Canberra on Tuesday.
Schools Education Minister Peter Garrett on Monday called for students, parents and teachers to send him their ideas on how to stamp out bullying in Australia's schools.
The call for ideas was a precursor to a forum including 16 different experts from education and child safety interest groups on Tuesday.
But Mr Garrett said on Tuesday the $4 million was a commitment he made to help prevent bullying, despite the announcement being carefully leaked to a national newspaper the day before the forum.
Mr Garrett made two other commitments he said came out of the forum, that he would ask the Education Department to explore the possibility of a "holistic social media strategy" to prevent bullying.
While he said he would consider the department's advice on the matter, Mr Garrett did not commit to implementing any advice.
He said he would commit to creating "innovative partnerships" with schools and the general community, but did not expand on the partnership proposal and no funding allocation was made.
