BERLIN, July 3 (Xinhua) -- 60 percent of German pupils are experiencing exclusion, bullying or physical violence from their peers in school, a study published by the German Bertelsmann foundation on Wednesday showed.
About one fourth of the 3,448 German pupils between the age of 8 and 14 surveyed in the study also said that they would not feel safe at school, the study found.
The high share of German pupils who had experienced exclusion and violence at primary schools was "striking", according to the Bertelsmann foundation. Even among Germany's youngest pupils, almost one in three stated that they had been excluded, bullied as well as beaten in school.
At German middle schools as well as the so-called Hauptschule, a secondary school which leads to the lowest education qualifications in Germany, the share of pupils who experienced all three forms of abuse stood at around 20 percent.
According to the study, pupils at German high schools are the least affected from being excluded, bullied or beaten. Only one in teen German pupils surveyed had experienced all three forms of abuse.
"Politicians are required to better protect children and young people," commented Joerg Draeger, member of the Bertelsmann executive board.
The study also showed that many children in Germany would not be sufficiently be informed about their rights. Nearly half of the pupils at German high schools had no or only uncertain knowledge about their rights, and at primary schools the share stood at 63 percent.
It would be "sobering" that, in the 30th year of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) of the United Nations, children and young people "often do not know their rights", said Sabine Andresen, author of the Bertelsmann study, adding that this "urgently needs to be improved".
