Quantitative analysis of school safety events in China

Recent years have seen increasing school safety events along with growing numbers of students in China. In this paper, more than 400 serious school safety events between 2000 and 2018 in China were collected. The causes and characteristics of these events, taking into account the occurrence years, months, regions, education stages and types, were investigated. The results indicate that the number of school safety events has generally increased annually from 2000 to 2018 and can significantly vary each month, showing a higher frequency of occurrence during the “First Semester” (generally from September to December in China). Moreover, spatial distribution of school safety events is normally related to regional economic development; it was found that Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shandong is a first-level occurrence hotspots, followed by Zhejiang, Henan, Hebei and Sichuan, which are secondary occurrence hotspots. Furthermore, statistical analysis shows that the number of school safety events that occurred in kindergartens, primary schools and middle schools are approximately equal (around 1/3). Finally, it was found that the school safety events caused by “Accident” (such as school bus accidents, school fires, crowded stampedes and the collapses of school buildings) occupy a large proportion (57%).