Finnish schools increasingly report threats to police — YLE News

Schools in Finland are increasingly reporting threats of violence between students and against education staff to the police. This was reported by YLE News. According to the National Police Board, police received nearly 7,000 reports of suspected crimes from schools, universities and research institutions last year.

These statistics also cover kindergartens, comprehensive schools and upper secondary schools, and therefore do not make it possible to determine precisely which institutions had the highest number of incidents. The most common suspected offence in such reports was assault. The number of reports also varies significantly by region, which may be related to the differing number of educational institutions.

Threats among younger pupils

Petri Mäkelä, a school principal in Rovaniemi, said that even younger pupils threaten each other with serious violence. According to him, first-graders already use phrases such as “I will kill you” or “I will shoot you.” Mäkelä noted that children’s language has become harsher, although pupils of this age do not understand the full meaning of what they say and may express emotional tension in this way.

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Threats against teachers

The OAJ education union says that educators are reporting such incidents more often than ever before. According to a recent survey in the education sector, 14% of respondents had encountered violence or threats of violence at work over the past year.

Ulla Valli, director of OAJ’s legal department, said that around 200 people had contacted the organization this year on matters related to crimes. Five years ago, there were only a few dozen such contacts per year. Teachers were threatened with murder or assault, and the source of the threats could be students, former students, or parents or guardians. According to OAJ, cases of violence or threats have increased most notably in primary education over the past two years.

In cases where teachers are victims, these include, among other things, pupils hitting, kicking or scratching adults. Typical situations in which an educator may be suspected of an offence are related to maintaining order in the classroom.