The significant influence of school safety management on school safety in selected international schools in Bangkok, Thailand

Today, schools face new and unimaginable threats to their safety.  To  improve school  safety appropriate leadership  and management  is  needed,  however  in  developing  countries  appropriate  leadership  and  management  is  not  always  present. According to the United Nations Convention of the rights of a child it states that every child has the right to be safe (Wahlström, 2011). Schools are principal environments where children spend considerable amount of time during their formative years therefore, school safety should be effectively managed, promoted, and prioritized.  In Thailand school safety is generally considered to be of low priority compared with other educational issues, with a lack of effective policy, and with schools struggling to justify safety costs (Srichai, 2013). This study was conducted to determine the level of school safety in terms of the following dimensions: Safe Classrooms, Safe Facilities, Disaster and Emergency Preparedness and Bullying. This study was also conducted to determine the level of school safety management in terms of the following dimensions: Planning, Organizing, Leading and controlling, as well as to investigate the significant influence of school safety management on the dimensions of school safety. It was found that the level of management of school safety with regard to the dimension “Safe Classrooms” was the highest.  The dimension “Bullying”, was low and therefore not on the expected level. It was also found that only two of the dimensions of school safety management namely controlling and planning, were statistically significant to influence school safety.