he Estonian Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Education and Research, the Rescue Board and the Police and Border Guard Board are about to hold an exercise on Tuesday and Thursday for school crisis teams to practice responding to a bomb threat.
More than 300 educational establishments have registered for the exercise that will see crisis response teams act in a virtual school building.
Minister of the Interior Lauri Laanemets said that feedback from schools to the wave of spam emails in October showed that educational institutions want to be better prepared for such situations.
“Fortunately, the bomb threats made by the spam emails were not a real threat. However, they were intended to sow confusion and undermine our sense of security. A positive side of the unpleasant hybrid attack is that many educational institutions started to think more about whether they were adequately prepared for such dangers and crises. In cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Research, we therefore proposed a virtual exercise so that school crisis teams would be well prepared for acting in real-life emergencies,” the minister said.
Henry Kattago, deputy secretary general of the Ministry of Education and Research, said that practicing actions during a crisis increases the sense of security of school communities and gives confidence when it comes to acting in the event of a possible incident.
“Most educational institutions have the necessary plans in place, but it is important that they are up-to-date and everyone is able to act on them. The main responsibility for creating preparedness for an emergency situation ultimately lies with the school’s administration,” Kattago said.
The exercise will be held on the crisis training platform of the Rescue Board, where a realistic simulation of an emergency situation will be carried out. Basic schools, gymnasiums, vocational schools, higher education institutions and universities were invited to take part in the exercise.
Source: BNS
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