Macedonia Launches School Violence Prevention Bid

Macedonian police officers | Photo by: MVR

The project to be launched this September envisages that more than 500 schools will have their own specially appointed officers that will try to gain the trust of students and their parents.

The police officers will “have direct contact with students and teachers,”Police Minister Gordana Jankulovska told press at the promotion of the project dubbed "Police Officers and Students Spending Time".

This should “enable students, their parents and school staff to know whom they should turn to for help in any moment,” Jankulovska explained.

The project is supported by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE.
 
For the purpose of the project, the OSCE has prepared a manual intended for small children to get acquainted with personal safety measures. In addition, local police officers are expected to visit schools throughout the year to talk to children about issues related to personal safety.

“We don't expect the issue involving violence in schools to be solved solely by this project,” Jankulovska said but added that she hoped that it would be the first step towards safer schools.

The move comes after last school year saw several severe incidents that caused worries among parents and the general public.

In February, a group of minors interrupted a class in the Marie Curie High School in Skopje, inflicting knife wounds to a teacher and a student and beating up several others.

That same month an 18-year-old boy was stabbed in the leg in the courtyard of the Brakja Miladinovci High School in Skopje and another boy sustained knife wounds in the Kole Nedelkovski High School in Veles inflicted by a pupil from another school.

In total, the police have counted 57 cases of school violence over the last school year, four of them involving the use of weapons.