THOUSANDS OF ANTI-BULLYING ads are to appear in school textbooks in a bid to target help towards young people who may need it.

The ads, which will give practical advice and helpline numbers for anyone who is being bullied, will appear in up to one thousand print and digital publications for primary and secondary schools.

One survey of Irish students estimated that almost one third of primary school students and 16 per cent of secondary school students are bullied at some stage.

The ads will be in place in publications by the end of next year and were designed under the direction of the Department of Education.

The Government set out a 12-step Action Plan on Bullying at the start of this year – including a national anti-bullying website and mandatory procedures for all schools on how to deal with bullying – in a bid to deal with the serious impact of bullying.

The increasing use of technology as a tool for bullying has been thrown into the spotlight following allegations that two teenage girls took their own lives last year after they had been bullied on controversial website Ask.fm.

The head of the Anti-Bullying Centre at Trinity College Dublin Mona O’Moore said recently that ‘traditional’ bullying is still three times more common than online harrassment, but predicted that there will be a change in bullying styles as more young people gain more access to smartphones and the internet.

The Irish Educational Publishers’ Assocation (IEPA), whose members publish 90 per cent of education publications in Ireland and which is behind the anti-bullying ads initiative, indicated that the ads could be the first step in running ads for other things in school textbooks.

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