“Oslo School Violence Revealed: Education Agency Under Fire for Releasing Detailed Information”

Dagbladet was able to reveal yesterday that Detailed information about incidents of violence in the Oslo school has been made public by the Norwegian Education Agency.

The information concerns many thousands of incidents of violence and threats by students against teachers. Kicks, punches and threats are described together with the school name and occasionally a detailed description of the incidents.

The opposition in Oslo is in a state of disarray, and believes that the Education Agency may have identified both the children who have practiced violence and the teachers who are exposed to it.

– Got a shock

The State Administrator has also told Dagbladet that they did not want this information released in the way the agency has done.

– I was shocked when I received this document, says Mehmet Kaan Inan (H) to Dagbladet.

There will be an emergency meeting about the case at the Town Hall on Wednesday at 12 noon, Dagbladet can confirm.

– Worst I’ve seen

Hallstein Bjercke (V) is also horrified by the case.

– I think this is the worst thing I have seen as long as I have worked at the Town Hall, he says to Dagbladet.

It is school councilor Sunniva Holmås Eidsvoll (SV) and school director Marte Gerhardsen who have been called into question in the case.

Mehmet Kaan Inan is clear that the information should not be public.

– It is totally unacceptable that such a document is going astray and being shared by people uncritically. My only wish on behalf of teachers and students who can be easily identified is that the information in the document should not be misused, says Kaan Inan.

– There is no doubt that this is a serious security flaw. Just over three years ago, another lack of security led to the school council in Bergen having to resign, he adds.

Crisis meeting

– Untenable situation

Hallstein Bjercke says he has a number of questions for city councilors Eidsvoll and Marte Gerhardsen.

– They must answer why such a collective document exists? Who has decided that this document should be created? Who has sent and/or decided to send the document out of the agency? Either way, this is a scandal. It is a serious breach of both students’ and teachers’ privacy, as they can be easily identified, says Bjercke.

– In all cases, several people are now sitting on sensitive personal data about an enormous number of children and young people in the city – and it is the agency’s fault. It is a completely untenable situation. As a left-wing politician in Oslo, I cannot accept that the municipality processes sensitive information about people in this way, says Bjercke further.

New party!

– Others must consider

It is Eivor Evenrud (Ap) who heads the education committee at City Hall.

Evenrud says that her gut feeling is that the agency has done nothing wrong in releasing the detailed information.

– Someone other than me must come in and assess the legality of releasing this information. In any case, it is violent to read, and gives a picture of a widespread problem in the Oslo school: Violence against teachers. As I see it, this information does not identify individual pupils or teachers, says Evenrud.

The Education Agency in Oslo says they did not really want to release the information, but believed they were required to do so by the State Administrator.

This is contested by the State Administrator, who told Dagbladet that the agency should have assessed the entirety of the information before it was released.