BACKGROUND: Bullying is a worldwide problem that continues to grow. Students become victims of bullying with or without the awareness of their teachers, parents or guardians. Little significant research exists on bullying at private schools, its characteristics, and its differences from public schools. Inattention to this segment of the population can lead to broad and inappropriate generalizations that what works in public schools will work in private schools.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the differences of bullying among grade school children enrolled in public and private schools.

METHODS: This is a cross sectional study participated by 156 students from Grade 4 to Grade 6 enrolled for the academic year 2014-2015 in a chosen public and private school in Iloilo City. A Stratified Random Sampling method was employed in the study sample. The Revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire (OBVQ) was used to get the period prevalence of bullying. Data was analyzed using the IBM SPSS Statistics 19.0 software.

RESULTS: The data showed that the prevalence of bullying in the study population is 72.4%. Among the three age groups, the highest proportion is in the age group of 11 to 13 years old with 35.9% experienced bullying once or twice a month for the past couple of months. There were more female (30.7%) than male (23.5%) students who were not bullied in school for the past couple of months. The data showed that both the students from private and public schools were bullied not only by boys or girls but by both boys and girls. This was claimed by 29.3% of the private school pupils and 27.0% of the public school pupils.

CONCLUSION: There is a statistically significant difference across the different forms of bullying between the public and private schools where the public school has a significantly higher percentage of bullying in comparison with the private school.