On Thursday, a student of a secondary vocational school in the western Slovak town of Novaky attacked his classmates with an axe. He struck a teenage girl in the head with the axe's blade and injured another boy, both of whom ended up hospitalised. The attacker was arrested by the police. The case has been taken over by the National Criminal Agency , after the collected evidence led to the suspicion that the perpetrator was attempting to commit premeditated murders.
What is most important at the moment is that victims of the attack at the Novaky school are safe, but the climate in society is tense and Slovakia needs to defuse the situation not just with words but also specific actions, President Zuzana Caputova declared on Thursday. "We are witnessing rising radicalisation not just on social networks or at a verbal level, but, unfortunately, following these latest attacks, also in physical reality. I think that this is a very dangerous phenomenon," stated Caputova.
In his response to the attack, Education Minister Jan Horecky declared that it is not possible to create a single universal manual on how to make schools safe, as every child and every school is different and the crisis management must take that into account. The minister asked school heads to draft guidelines on addressing crisis situations. "Every school must have plans on ensuring the health and security of its students, protection from bullying and other pathopsychological phenomena," he said, asking parents and teachers to talk with their children and students. Horecky underlined that schools must be a safe environment for all children. As another systematic measure, the ministry plans the introduction of a new curriculum that places emphasis on bolstering critical thinking, values-based education and the development of digital skills.
Children's ombudsman Jozef Miklosko has called for urgent action to tackle escalating violence and bullying at schools and across society, which, according to him, is often linked to mental health.
"A number of events that have taken place recently point to a lack of perception and solutions to children's problems," Miklosko said, announcing that his office is set to present the results of a survey inquiring about children's views on various topics in early December. "The results will point to problems that children are suffering from, as well as to the roots of the kind of behaviour [that was witnessed in Novaky on Thursday]," he claimed.
Source: TASR
