Effective Programme Against Bullying At School
Image: Eila Haikarainen / YLE
A special programme aimed at combating bullying has been found to cut incidents in schools by 40%. The programme which was tested in schools in Finland last year is called "KiVa Koulu"- KiVa, the Finnish for 'nice', is an acronym from "against bullying", plus koulu 'school'. Increasing numbers of pupils say that after the introduction of the programme, school has become much nicer. Follow-ups to pilot implementation in some schools last year found that the number of children regularly bullied at school and those doing the bullying, fell by 40%. "We have finally got ourselves a tangible tool to root bullying out of our schools, and research has shown that it is effective. The methods we have found should now speedily be implemented in all schools," says Minister of Education Sari Sarkomaa. Developed at the University of Turku, the programme was piloted with over 4000 fourth, fifth and sixth grade pupils last year. It includes classroom lessons dealing with the issue of bullying through discussion and exercises, as well as online materials and games. With the start of the new school year, more testing of the programme will be carried out among first to third graders and seventh to ninth graders. If it continues to show the levels of success so far seen, the anti-bullying programme will be become a part of the regular school curriculum throughout the country. YLE