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Teacher sues pupil for tripping her up

An Austrian teacher is suing one of her pupils for €1,700, claiming that he tripped her up on purpose in the classroom, causing serious bruising, pain and suffering.

Published: 10 December 2014 12:34 CET
Teacher sues pupil for tripping her up
Photo of a classroom: Shutterstock

The teacher, who works in a school in east Tyrol, said she was unable to return to work for several weeks after the incident.

She was collecting folders from students during an art class when she tripped over the 14-year-old boy’s outstretched legs, and fell to the floor.

The boy’s parents have said that the requested sum is ridiculous, and that the boy’s classmates are willing to testify that he didn’t trip the teacher on purpose.

He claims that he had stretched out his legs before she came near to his desk, and was busy drawing. Classmates said that he even tried to move his legs out of her way as she approached him.

The boy’s lawyer, Gerhard Seirer, said that he was known for being a well-behaved pupil and that the teacher’s claim that he had intentionally tripped her up was “defamatory”.

The case will go to court again in mid-February.

So far legal costs are around €2,000, and the case is likely to get more expensive the longer it takes to reach an agreement. Whoever loses the case will be liable for the costs.

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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.

Published: 18 April 2024 16:09 CEST
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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