To ask the Minister of Education to outline whether his Department holds any data on the number of (i) sectarian; and (ii) racially motivated, bullying incidents in schools.

The Addressing Bullying in Schools Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 (the Act) requires schools to record incidents of bullying type behaviour, their motivation and their outcome, however schools are not required to share this information with the Department. The Act assists schools in identifying the motivations for bullying type behaviour and putting in place suitable interventions to address this behaviour. Capturing the motivation for bullying type behaviour will help a school identify any specific areas of concern, such as sectarian or racially motived bullying type behaviour. This will enable the school to identify when they may benefit from specialist expertise and advice.

While the Department does not hold this level of information, the Education Authority’s (EA) Addressing Bullying in Schools Implementation Team (ABSIT) holds records of the cases referred to them.

In 2024/25, ABSIT dealt with 327 cases of bullying type behaviour. In 41% of cases, the referrer identified that they did not know the motivation. When the referral was able to identify a specific potential motivation, 2 cases (0.6%) were identified as being motivated by religion/sectarianism, and 23 (7%) were identified as being motivated by race.