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EDUCATION

School sued after pupil bullied on YouTube

A school in southern Sweden might have to pay damages for failing to help a student who was subjected to kicks, punches and verbal abuse by fellow students for two years.

School sued after pupil bullied on YouTube

The student at a school in Simrishamn, in southern Sweden, had to endure constant physical and verbal abuse from other students at his school.

Apart from being kicked and punched, the boy also had objects thrown at him and his clothes ruined on more than one occasion.

At one point, one of the incidents was filmed and put on YouTube.

The school made attempts to combat the bullying but failed to put a stop to the abuse.

However, according to the Swedish Child-and-Student Ombudsman (Barn- och elevombudet, BEO), the school didn’t do enough. The Ombudsman has therefore demanded that the local authority pay damages to the boy.

The claim of 160,000 kronor ($24,300) is one of the largest in a bullying case in Sweden.

Christer Grankvist, a deputy chairman in the local authority’s child–and education-board, told news agency TT that what has happened is unfortunate and that the municipality has a zero-tolerance policy for bullying.

“The whole process has meant that the school has reviewed their policies and taken step to ensure this will not happen again,” he told TT.

The school has until December 19th to show a plan for dealing with bullying in the future and to decide what to do about the claim.

“My guess is that they will pay,” Grankvist told TT.

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EDUCATION

Sweden’s Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

Sweden's opposition Social Democrats have called for a total ban on the establishment of new profit-making free schools, in a sign the party may be toughening its policies on profit-making in the welfare sector.

Sweden's Social Democrats call for ban on new free schools

“We want the state to slam on the emergency brakes and bring in a ban on establishing [new schools],” the party’s leader, Magdalena Andersson, said at a press conference.

“We think the Swedish people should be making the decisions on the Swedish school system, and not big school corporations whose main driver is making a profit.” 

Almost a fifth of pupils in Sweden attend one of the country’s 3,900 primary and secondary “free schools”, first introduced in the country in the early 1990s. 

Even though three quarters of the schools are run by private companies on a for-profit basis, they are 100 percent state funded, with schools given money for each pupil. 

This system has come in for criticism in recent years, with profit-making schools blamed for increasing segregation, contributing to declining educational standards and for grade inflation. 

In the run-up to the 2022 election, Andersson called for a ban on the companies being able to distribute profits to their owners in the form of dividends, calling for all profits to be reinvested in the school system.  

READ ALSO: Sweden’s pioneering for-profit ‘free schools’ under fire 

Andersson said that the new ban on establishing free schools could be achieved by extending a law banning the establishment of religious free schools, brought in while they were in power, to cover all free schools. 

“It’s possible to use that legislation as a base and so develop this new law quite rapidly,” Andersson said, adding that this law would be the first step along the way to a total ban on profit-making schools in Sweden. 

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