The new bullying detection tool has recorded 1,300 cases since the start of the school year.

BarcelonaThis year, the Catalan education system has launched the REVA, the Registry of Violence Against Students. Broadly speaking, the tool is a shared registry in which all schools and colleges are required to report and detail cases of bullying, as well as other types of violence, that they detect among students. The Department of Education implemented the resource approximately a year ago, but it wasn't until September 2024 that it became mandatory for educational centers to use it. According to this registry, since the start of the 2024-2025 school year, Catalan schools and colleges have recorded up to 1,333 cases of bullying in Catalan classrooms, where there are more than 1,600,000 students.

The REVA represents an important step forward in creating a much more reliable picture of the bullying situation. bullying in Catalan schools, because until now the only indicator was the number of actions carried out by the Student Support Unit in Situations of Violence (USAV). However, this resource is activated to support different situations of violence that do not only include bullying, and therefore the data can be more complicated to interpret.

Now, although the change in registration makes it difficult to compare current data with those of recent years, it should be noted that between 2021 and 2024, the USAV handled 2,206 cases of alleged bullying in Catalan schools. In these three academic years, the number of cases handled skyrocketed by 200%. However, it should be remembered that the increase not only implies that violence in schools has increased, which may be the case, but also that there is greater awareness of this scourge.

More than 400 cases of gender-based violence

Beyond the total number of cases, the REVA also includes details on the characteristics of each recorded case of student violence, whether it involves bullying or other types of violence. Thus, since the beginning of the school year, up to 433 cases of gender-based violence among students and 182 cases of hate and discrimination among students have been recorded. In this regard, it is important to keep in mind that a single case of bullying can be recorded for more than one reason.

Aside from cases of violence between students, REVA has also been notified of almost a thousand (906) cases of child and adolescent abuse since September. In addition, 759 cases of gender-based violence against a student have been recorded, involving an act of hatred and discrimination towards a student, and a single case in which a situation of forced marriage has been detected. 2.4% of the cases detected in the area in which the violence has been exercised is digital, which may also indicate that there is still a lack of control within this field.