Swedish schools practice deadly situations

In the fall of 2015, Sweden's worst school attack occurred at Kronan's school in Trollhättan. Shortly thereafter, several different private security companies developed courses that they sell to schools.

SVT News has gone through the safety training for staff in municipal primary schools in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö over the past three years - and the review shows that the schools are investing in training for the staff.

In Malmö's schools, incidents of violence increased by 9 per cent last school year compared to the previous school year. The years 2016 and 2019, with the help of the police, trained staff in all of the city's primary schools.

Demir Kolenovic, security investigator in Malmö, says they have changed the way they see security around school properties:

- We work according to the Fara method. We map and take action and then evaluate together with the parties involved.

The City of Stockholm is investing the most and has decided that the staff at all their schools should attend an education. Companies are brought in to train the schools for a full day, consisting of theory and practical exercises, in so-called deadly violence.

They have spent almost one million SEK on 33 programs at 19 compulsory schools over the past three years, according to invoices that SVT News has requested.

In Gothenburg, security strategist Susanna Thureson first says that no training courses were purchased, but when SVT requests invoices, it turns out that an elementary school has had a full day of exercises for ongoing deadly violence in 2019.

- They asked to have it after doing a safety assessment. It is the schools themselves that make that assessment, says Susanna Thureson.

The private school group Academedia is also investing in similar educational programs.

- It is as with fire, it is very unusual for it to burn at schools in Sweden, but still we practice before it. It's exactly the same here, says Paula Hammerskog, Director of Security at Academedia.

The Group has an ongoing training effort in which the staff is trained in all of its 80 elementary schools and 150 upper secondary schools throughout Sweden in this.

- So far we have trained about 6,000 people.

Does this create security, or vice versa?

- It was something we talked about a lot before. It turned out that the reaction was the opposite, people lowered their shoulders and thought it was nice that someone finally talked about this, says Paula Hammerskog.

See when school staff rehearse in the report in "The crime of the week" on Thursday 12 December at 21.00 in SVT1.