Schoolchildren in a classroom at the beginning of a lesson. Photo: Vesa Moilanen / Lehtikuva
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In-service training for teachers on school safety has been discontinued following government budget cuts, the Regional State Administrative Agency (Avi) confirmed this week.
The decision affects hundreds of school staff development events across Finland. Last year, Avi organised close to 300 safety training sessions with an estimated total attendance of 30,000 participants.
Esa Kaunisto, head of Avi’s education and culture division, told Yle the funding was cut by the Ministry of Education and Culture. “In autumn 2024, we were informed that our current training activities would no longer receive support,” Kaunisto said.
The training programme aimed to prepare school staff for a range of emergency scenarios, including internal and external threats to school safety. Finnish law places responsibility for school security on municipalities, but legislation also expects individual staff and students to contribute to a safe learning environment.
Kaunisto said the cancellation of centralised training may leave schools vulnerable. “Unexpected threats require a basic level of readiness, and structured training is the best way to maintain that,” he said.
Avi’s own assessment from 2023 found that most Finnish schools are well-prepared for external incidents such as fires or environmental hazards. However, preparedness for internal threats, such as violence from within the school, remains uneven.
The issue has gained more attention in recent years, partly due to past incidents, including the school shootings in Jokela in 2007 and Kauhajoki in 2008.
Despite improvements, gaps remain. Many schools still do not regularly practice responses to internal threats. Henri Rikander, a legal scholar working with the City of Tampere, said only 60 percent of schools train staff and pupils on how to shelter indoors. Nearly all schools, by contrast, conduct regular outdoor evacuation drills.
“There’s still a training gap,” Rikander said, noting that rural schools in particular often lack re
Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
