Current situation of ensuring school safety and solutions for the 2025-2026 school year

School Violence: Reducing Incidents and Severity

Regarding school violence, Mr. Hoang Duc Minh, Head of the Department of Students, informed: With the joint efforts from the central to local levels and schools, the work of preventing school violence has achieved initial remarkable results.

Compared to the 2022-2023 school year, the number of school violence cases occurring in the 2023-2024 school year decreased by 20.6%; the number of students involved decreased by 24.2% (the number of female students involved decreased by 29.4%; the number of students at risk of being involved in school violence decreased by 27.9%).

Specifically, in the 2023-2024 school year, there were 466 cases nationwide, involving 1,453 students (509 female students, 235 students suffered physical harm; 222 students suffered mental harm; 1,791 students were at risk of being involved in school violence).

Recent figures show that, compared to before, the number of incidents and their severity have tended to decrease, reflecting in part the initial effectiveness of the implemented solutions.

In the first 5 months of 2025 alone, 28 cases of cyberbullying were recorded. The actual number is certainly much larger because this behavior occurs silently, is difficult to detect, and is difficult to intervene. Cyberbullying causes serious and long-term psychological damage, causing schools to lose their role as safe places for students to return to.

There are still many students violating traffic safety.

Regarding traffic safety, Mr. Hoang Duc Minh said: Implementing the direction of the Ministry of Education and Training , educational institutions have seriously developed plans and organized activities to disseminate traffic safety laws to managers, teachers and students.

However, according to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security , from December 21, 2023 to December 21, 2024, there were still 4,111 traffic accidents involving school-age children, accounting for 17.45% of the total number of traffic accidents nationwide.

In addition, during the school year, there were 365 cases of students violating traffic safety laws that were handled.

Common violations include: not wearing a helmet when riding a motorbike, scooter, or electric bicycle; driving underage or without a driver's license; running a red light...

The above figures show that behavioral change is still slow and unsustainable, and that strengthening legal education on traffic safety in schools still needs to be maintained regularly and continuously, in accordance with the characteristics of students' ages.

Only 33.75% of students know how to swim, about 8.6% of schools have swimming pools

Regarding injuries and drowning, each year in our country, about 700 children die from drowning. Meanwhile, the rate of students who know how to swim is only 33.75% and only about 8.6% of schools have swimming pools.

Swimming teaching mainly relies on socialized resources, lacking a standard system of documents and certified teachers.

In the 2024-2025 school year, 100% of the Departments of Education and Training have issued plans or documents guiding educational institutions to strengthen propaganda, education, and equip students with knowledge and skills to prevent injuries and drowning.

Units have effectively used the guidance documents issued by the Ministry of Education and Training, integrating the content into educational activities appropriate to each level of education.

Many localities have focused on promoting training and fostering swimming teachers. 100% of the Departments of Education and Training sent key teachers to attend training courses organized by the Ministry of Education and Training, and coordinated with the Department of Culture and Sports to organize large-scale training and issue certificates to physical education teachers in general schools in the area.

However, the progress of implementing Decision 1717/QD-TTg in some localities is still slow. By the end of the 2024-2025 school year, only 30% of provinces/cities had issued implementation plans, and only 4 Departments of Education and Training had directly issued implementation plans. The implementation of regular and ad hoc reporting on injury and drowning prevention is inadequate.

Food poisoning is mainly caused by eating out and food around the school gate.

In the 2024-2025 school year, the Departments of Education and Training have seriously implemented the Government's direction and the guidance of the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Health on ensuring nutrition and food safety in school meals. Nutrition education is integrated into subjects and extracurricular activities from kindergarten to university.

Many educational institutions have applied nutritionally balanced menu software, with about 4,500 primary schools using it regularly. Boarding meals focus on nutritional balance, ensuring food safety according to procedures.

However, in the first 5 months of 2025, there were still 3 food poisoning incidents affecting 58 students, mainly due to outside meals or unsafe food around the school gate.

The organization, management and supervision of meals still face many difficulties due to the lack of standards and specific regulations in legal documents.

Still present, students using electronic cigarettes increased.

Status of students using e-cigarettes and drugs: According to survey data conducted by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Training, the rate of students aged 13-15 who have used e-cigarettes has doubled, from 3.5% in 2022 to 8% in 2023.

Notably, the rate of female students using it reached 4.3%, showing that this trend is no longer gender specific but has spread widely in schools.

The main reason is that students can easily access products through social networks and stores near schools.

Faced with that situation, the Education sector has synchronously implemented work to prevent the harmful effects of tobacco and alcohol, associated with building a safe, healthy, smoke-free school environment.

100% of Departments of Education and Training have issued guidance documents, many localities have issued their own plans and directed the completion of the Steering Committee for Tobacco Harm Prevention at educational institutions.

Propaganda activities, quizzes, and the “Smoke-free School” model are flexibly implemented, integrated into flag salutes, classes, and school counseling rooms. After the National Assembly issued Resolution 173/2024/QH15 banning e-cigarettes, schools have asked students to pledge not to use them, and have organized at least one communication activity on this content.

The above figures reflect that: despite the great efforts of the education sector, risks threatening the safety and healthy development of students still exist at all levels, regions and forms of training.

Solutions for the 2025-2026 school year

The causes of these problems, according to Mr. Hoang Duc Minh, are due to the legal system being unsynchronized and inadequate; the capacity of teachers and managers is limited; the school health system and psychological counseling have not received adequate investment; and communication work is not attractive, diverse, and effective enough.

School violence is not only a problem of the education sector, but is the result of many factors from family, society, cultural and media environment to the psychological development of the age group. Currently, in some places, the coordination between school, family and community is not really synchronous and effective.

The tasks and solutions proposed to overcome the above shortcomings are as follows:

Firstly, gradually establishing a strong enough legal system, from the Law on Education to the Law on Teachers; implementing a code of conduct on the internet environment, building a set of criteria for safe schools - no tobacco - no violence.

Strengthen coordination with the Ministries of Public Security, Health, Culture, Sports and Tourism to handle and remove harmful factors that affect students such as offensive movies, violent games, and harmful trends on social networks. At the same time, teachers and school officials are specifically responsible if school violence occurs, as in the spirit of the Law on Teachers recently passed by the National Assembly.

Second, continue to attach importance to and improve the effectiveness of political, ideological, ethical, lifestyle and behavioral education for students through innovating the content and forms of propaganda on the Party and State's guidelines and policies on the two-level government model, socio-economic development, and education and training innovation in the new context; promote propaganda for the 14th National Party Congress to create unity and consensus throughout the sector.

Increase the use of modern educational methods, develop tools to evaluate the effectiveness of education on ideals, ethics, and lifestyle; direct the development of a code of conduct in schools associated with building the qualities, styles of students and the school brand; prevent and handle acts of abuse against students in the online environment.

Develop a network of educational collaborators in the community, encourage social participation in student education. Organize activities to study and follow Ho Chi Minh's ideology, morality and lifestyle in connection with practice; improve the quality of Youth Union and Association activities in ideal education.

Third, continue to effectively guide and organize activities of skills education, social work, and school psychological counseling to improve the comprehensive capacity and qualities of students. Strengthen education on skills, behavior, and problem solving; train teachers in positive educational methods and psychological support; improve the capacity of school counseling teams. Promote coordination between schools, families, and society through perfecting policies, developing assessment criteria, applying digital transformation, and training coordination skills for stakeholders.

Fourth, promote management and support for learners in a modern, comprehensive and effective manner. Strengthen management and support for learners; build comprehensive support services for students in accordance with the law, ensuring full rights of learners; develop a plan to implement the Project "Supporting students to start businesses in the period 2026-2035" in accordance with practical requirements, creating a strong driving force to promote the spirit of entrepreneurship throughout the industry.

Fifth, effectively implement plans to prevent and combat school violence, crime, social evils (drugs, prostitution), injuries, drowning, alcohol and tobacco in schools.

Continue to direct educational institutions to strictly implement legal regulations on prevention and control of harmful effects of tobacco, alcohol, drugs, traffic safety, fire prevention and fighting, rescue. Effectively implement coordination programs between the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Public Security on legal education, crime prevention and law violations in schools.

Promote propaganda and education on accident, injury and drowning prevention skills; organize traffic safety programs appropriate to each level of education. Strengthen coordination with functional forces to organize training and drills on fire prevention and fighting skills, rescue; develop safe swimming teaching programs and improve the capacity of teachers. Continue to promote communication, inspection, supervision and handling of violations related to tobacco and alcohol in schools.

Sixth, enhancing digital transformation contributes to: providing information and digital maps on school safety work to assess, screen, detect, and forecast early for localities and schools the risks of school insecurity, violence, mental health damage, etc.; effectively exploiting technical documents, guidance processes, and application results of safe school building models; connecting experts to quickly handle emerging crises. Focusing on preventing risks of insecurity for students from the online environment. Investing resources effectively in school safety work.

Seventh, maintain and develop the system of student sports competitions associated with the physical education program; prioritize swimming, traditional martial arts, and ethnic sports. Guide and train the establishment of sports clubs in schools, coordinate with sports organizations to support the development of school sports movements.

Eighth, review and complete programs and plans for the protection and health care of children, pupils and students for the period 2025-2030; ensure unified implementation in localities. Continue to train and develop school health staff. Strengthen interdisciplinary inspections and supervision of the organization of school meals to ensure nutrition and food safety, with the participation of the Parents' Representative Committee; develop response plans when food poisoning occurs. Improve the quality of child protection, care and education and focus resources on completing unachieved targets in the National Action Program for Children for the period 2021-2030.

Source: https://giaoducthoidai.vn/thuc-trang-bao-dam-an-toan-truong-hoc-va-giai-phap-cho-nam-hoc-2025-2026-post741807.html