The Danish Working Environment Authority (Arbejdstilsynet), the government authority responsible for inspecting conditions at workplaces, issued 57 different orders at 46 different schools related to harassment and violence against teachers and childcarers over a three-year-period from 2021 to 2023.
The frequent number of cases was reported by teachers’ journal Fagbladet Folkeskolen and the national centre for investigative journalism, Gravercentret, via an access to documents request.
When an order is issued by the authority, this means that Danish working environment laws have been breached, obliging the employer to find a resolution to the problem.
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Problems related to violence, threats and harassment at the 46 schools were reported by the Working Environment Authority to be so serious that they “can degrade the physical or mental health of staff in the short or long term”.
A review of the reports by Fagbladet Folkeskolen and Gravercentret showed that incidents to harassment or physical attacks took place on a daily or weekly basis.
One report from a school in the town of Hillerød north of Copenhagen stated that “employees experience physical or psychological violence so often that their boundaries and norms are shifted. Some of them consider it normal to be hit or kicked at work”.
Inspectors at a school in South Jutland town Haderslev meanwhile observed that staff “shut down their social lives at weekends to recover before going back to work and they don’t have the energy to spend their holidays on things like vacation with family”.
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