BANGKOK: Students stood quietly outside their Bangkok school on Friday (Aug 14) as teachers checked their bags, pockets and even pencil cases under new security measures introduced after last week’s deadly shooting.
Thailand’s government has ordered schools nationwide to step up controls following the Aug 7 attack near Bangkok, when a 14-year-old killed his grandparents, five school staff and a pupil before turning the gun on himself.
“An incident like this should not have happened in a school,” headteacher Suparong Sawangngamwong told AFP after overseeing the new checks at Bangkok’s Sawasdee Wittaya School.
He said he hoped the inspections will ensure “parents can be at ease”, assuring them school is a safe place “where parents trust their children can spend their days”.
A modest public school nestled among the city’s affluent neighbourhoods, Sawasdee Wittaya has more than 500 pupils aged six to 12, and 30 teachers.
Six teachers on Friday morning meticulously searched pupils’ backpacks as they arrived for class, going through every pocket.
As they returned the bags, the children, one by one, pressed their palms together and bowed to the teachers in the Thai greeting taught as part of school etiquette.
Previously, “we would only randomly check the bags of students in the higher grades, or kids with problematic behaviour”, said Suparong, who has more than two decades of teaching experience.
“But now we do it for everyone.”