Alternate Education Minister Tasos Kourakis announced the education ministry’s initiatives to address instances of bullying. He said the ministry will make use of funds from the National Strategic Reference Framework to train 16,500 teachers so as to be able to deal with such cases.

Answering a question tabled by SYRIZA deputy Alexandros Triantafyllidis, Kourakis said the ministry has started recording such incidents so as to draft a comprehensive plan, with the main focus being on the enhancement of health care and welfare structures. The ministry’s initiatives include giving schools the support of psychologists to help pupils understand how they should deal with such incidents.

Such incidents have apparently rose over recent years — either through better recording of such instances or because of other factors — and a focus on the subject after the high-profile suicide of Vangelis Giakoumakis, 20, who was allegedly bullied (hazed) by his peers at a vocational school in northwest Greece.