Schools are supposed to be safe zones -- more akin to a second home for students where they can learn, gain new experiences, improve their skills and forge friendships.
In reality, more than a few schools in Thailand are not safe for either their students or teachers, as attested to by recent reports about physical attacks and violence on school grounds. Many cases are linked to bullying.
According to the 2021 Student Health Survey by the World Bank, 25% of students aged 13-17 in Thailand have experienced physical bullying at school. The corresponding rate jumps to 35% for boys alone.
In one tragic case in 2010, a 12-year-old killed herself using her guardian's pistol because she was frequently teased by her classmates about being an orphan.
The latest case of school violence occurred Monday last week at a municipal school in Bangkok when a 14-year-old stabbed a fellow student to death with a kitchen knife he smuggled into the school compound.
The boy told the police he had been persistently bullied and extorted by the victim, which prompted the stabbing. However, the police were dubious as to the validity of these claims and charged him with premeditated murder.
School violence is not always confined to students. Some cases involve teachers lashing out at their students.
In one recent case in Samut Prakan, two female teachers allegedly used a safety pin to prick the lips of all 36 students in their Prathom 2 class after none of them admitted to throwing chewing gum on the floor, which one of the teachers stepped on.
In defending their actions, the teachers claimed they had not meant to harm the kids but merely wanted to teach them to have the courage to accept responsibility for their wrongdoing.
Such senseless violence is preventable and could be reduced if the school management were genuinely concerned with the problem and nipped problems in the bud at an early stage.
One problem is that bullying often takes place in "blind spots" on school grounds that are not covered by CCTV cameras or monitored by teachers.
As such, calls should be heeded to beef up security by installing more surveillance cameras or hiring more security guards.
Meanwhile, teachers should be trained to spot aggressive students who are prone to violence and taught how to provide advice or counselling for victims of bullying or to convince victims to come forward and report those who harass or molest them.
But teachers will not be able to cope with the problem alone without the active participation of the parents and the communities where the schools are located.
These groups must somehow be convinced that school violence is also their problem.
Parents, in particular, must participate in these programmes because some aggressive students may have had their behavioural patterns predetermined to some degree by having been exposed to domestic violence at home.
All parties concerned, including the Education Ministry, should adopt a proactive approach in order to deal with school violence in earnest rather than compelling each school to deal with it independently.
The recent fatal stabbing could have been prevented if the alleged bullying victim who later became the predator had been given the proper counselling and been well taken care of.