Security expert Pavle Kalinic was a guest on the morning programme "Novi dan" with Tihomir Ladisic, where he spoke about the new security protocol for schools.

Following the tragedy that occurred on 20 December in a primary school in the Zagreb district of Precko, a new security protocol was introduced in all schools in Croatia. Schools are now locked, access by visitors and parents is monitored and parents must give advance notice of their visits.

Kalinic is unhappy with this solution. “This protocol – whoever wrote it – it is clear that this person does not understand the issue or the problem well enough to address it,” he said.

He talked about his proposal for school safety, which he said he made 15 years ago.

“Retired police officers who retire at 50 or younger should be assigned as school guards,” he said.

The importance of evacuation drills

He emphasised the need for evacuation protocol in schools.

“In Precko, the children escaped through the windows. Even for this scenario, you need to have a plan of where the children will go and where they will seek shelter. It has also been suggested that schools set up safe rooms, which involves certain costs, but you cannot neglect the safety of children, so these costs are justified,” Kalinic explained.

He also emphasised the importance of doors that can be locked from the outside but allow easy exit from the inside without the need to unlock them.

“The protocol also mentions evacuation drills, which must be carried out at least twice a year. That’s not enough. What’s the point of evacuating twice a year? During a panic, everything looks completely different. These drills need to take place much more frequently,” says Kalinic.

“Fairy tales about civil protection”

He also addressed the Croatian civil protection system.

“What annoys me the most are these fairy tales about civil protection. Croatia has no civil protection. I recently read in the press that Croatia has 11,000 members in civil defence. This is not the case. During the recent floods on the Danube, this civil defence was invisible. Zagreb officially had 8,200 civil defence members on paper, but during the earthquake there were only about 6,200 or 6,500. Croatia should have between 80,000 and 100,000 civil defence members,” argued Kalinic.

He believes that the level of security needs to be increased in other institutions as well:

“We always think: ‘It won’t happen to us’, but these things do happen. Look at the surrounding areas – Belgrade, Montenegro… We are living in a time when we need to raise security to a higher level, including in schools, kindergartens, high schools, universities, health centres and nursing homes.”