Security alert at the school: 70% of students experience forms of violence

Education Field Knower Jonuz Saliaj in a Pronouncement Telegraph, says the real situation is even heavier at the country level.

Linking to recent reporting that a large number of schools in the capital have shortcomings in this regard, Saliaj stresses that the situation is even more disturbing at the country level.

“actually, at the Kosovo level, polls show that 70% of children have problems for sure. So 70% of children have experienced a form of violence, physical violence, blackmail, emotional, psychological, or cyber-space violence. Unfortunately, we don't have precise statistics because children are often reluctant to present violence, but if we take into account the Kosovo Police's 2022 data, we are dealing with 539 cases of various forms of harassment in Kosovo schools, ranging from lynism to physical violence as stabs that have often ended with life loss”, he said.

According to him, the risks students face are many and increasing.

“Dominism and blackmail, but we also have other forms of violence, student-student, student-student, sex harassment by educators and what is the most terrifying of cases of pedophilia, which is a growing”, Saliaj said.

He points out that lack of security directly affects the quality of education and the welfare of students.

If a student is blackmailed every day to bring them to class, or else she gets her uncle or knives, then what quality of education is spoken of when the child is anxious as being driven by a bully. As a result, children are lacking in school, unfocused, hated school, and took advantage of every opportunity to escape school. Thus, at the country level in high-school schools for the 2024/2025 school year, a record number of shortages, 42 lack of student head. When it is known that with 32 unreasonable shortcomings according to student regulation, the student is expelled from school, it is said that all students of this level of high education are considered disfellowshipped”, Saliha said of Telegrafi.

As for institutional measures, Saliaj estimates that documents and strategies exist, but they are not implemented in practice. He adds that the core of the problem is psychological and professorial.

“Schools have development plans, regulations and strategies, but most remain paper documents that are not implemented in practice. Pristina Community officials' effort to provide security at schools should be welcomed, but this is being reflected by only one angle, as technical issues. Setting cameras in school environments, infrastructure improvements, etc., significantly improves transparency in identifying perpetrators, but does not solve the problem. The core of the problem is psychological and academic. There are proven models guaranteeing a reduction in violence in large scale, for example. The Finnish model, which, if exactly applied, reduces 30% of the confusion within a year”, he said.

In the end, it has listed measures that need to be taken urgently by institutions.

Besides technical issues related to infrastructure, psychologists and professors are immediately needed at each school. Anti-violence commissions made up of 3 members, a teacher, director or deputy director and psychologist or teacher should be formed in each school. These teams are trained with a particular programme, in the centre of which is the altar”, Saliha said.

The education field recogniser went on to add that in each class a commission should be formed as well by 3 students who co-operate with the school-level commission that identify problems and solve them together by informing parents.

This project is implemented in custody or civil education hours without having to change anything in school curriculum. So only the combination and fulfillment of technical, professorial and psychological criteria significantly reduces school violence with direct impact on the safety of school institutions at all times”, Saliha concluded.

Otherwise, according to the recent report by the Directorate for Security and Emergency in Pristina, about 50 percent of schools in the capital face security problems, raising serious concerns about the safety of students and educational staff. /Periscope