Finnish anti-bullying programme goes to schools in Iceland

The MOU was signed during a recent state visit by Iceland’s President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson and his delegation. The agreement signals the beginning of the formal process of evaluating the implementation of the KiVa programme into a total of 180 primary and secondary schools in Iceland.

As the world’s only research-based anti-bullying programme, KiVa has caught the attention of Halldóra Vanda Sigurgeirsdóttir, an assistant professor at the University of Iceland’s School of Education, who has led the charge against bullying in Iceland for over 30 years.

“The main reason I want Iceland to look more closely at KiVa is because we don’t have any evidence-based programmes in use in our schools,” she states, “I like how KiVa is a tried-and-tested framework, and how it takes the social aspect of bullying strongly into account.”

KiVa identifies and tackles universal behavioural tendencies and peer dynamics. Teaching tools and methods are ingrained into the programme’s structure, meaning that it can be implemented in any international context.