Thailand's Education, Higher Education, Social Development and Human Security, and Labour ministries have given themselves 90 days to draw up National School Safety Standards for Cabinet consideration following the violent incident at Debsirin Nonthaburi School.

The proposed nationwide framework will cover mental health screening, school security, emergency preparedness and bullying, while immediate support and tighter entry checks are being introduced at the affected school.

Emergency support at Debsirin Nonthaburi

The joint meeting was led by Professor Yodchanan Wongsawat, Minister of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation; Education Minister Prasert Jantararuangtong; Social Development and Human Security Minister Nikorn Soemklang; and Labour Minister Julapun Amornvivat.

Yodchanan said the incident must not be allowed to happen again. The response has two parts, beginning with a short-term School Reopening Plan focused on psychological recovery and initial safety screening.

Nationwide mental health support will be available through the Department of Mental Health, including the 1323 hotline, a chat service and an appointment system. Local psychologists from the Education Ministry, institutions under the Higher Education Ministry, and the Social Development and Human Security Ministry will coordinate support.

Mental health volunteer teams will be sent to Debsirin Nonthaburi to assist pupils, teachers and parents. Psychological recovery activities, in line with international standards, will be held on the first day classes resume.

The classroom where the incident happened will be closed permanently. Registered parents will be able to observe their children from a designated area, while severely affected teachers and pupils may transfer to other schools where appropriate.

Prasert ordered the school to suspend classes throughout next week while it assesses the situation and strengthens internal measures.

National standards and tougher checks

The longer-term standards will require regular mental health screening for pupils and teachers, along with a referral system for at-risk pupils to specialist doctors.

A Train the Trainer programme will equip guidance teachers and class advisers to identify needs and provide basic psychological first aid. Pupils will also have a reporting channel via the Rights Protection Centre on the Traffy Fondue platform and a Safe Zone to raise concerns they cannot discuss elsewhere.

Other proposals include drills for different emergencies, reviews of vulnerabilities including CCTV systems, and a Zero Tolerance policy under which bullying will not be ignored. The framework also calls for stronger teacher-pupil relationships, promotion of moral values, and rigorous screening of people and illegal items before entry to education institutions.

Temporary checks for illegal items have already begun at school entrances. Prasert said he was preparing a ministerial announcement allowing administrators and teachers responsible for discipline to search bags and belongings of pupils in at-risk groups for weapons, including knives and guns.

Yodchanan urged parents to watch for unusual behaviour and seek psychiatric help promptly where needed, saying there was no shame in seeing a psychiatrist.

The Education Ministry has prepared assistance for the family of the teacher who died, including ministry funds, the Ch.P.K. funeral assistance scheme and government support. It will also consider a special promotion because the teacher died on duty.

Prasert said the school, with around 3,500 pupils, already had CCTV and security measures, but had never experienced an incident of this severity.

Picture courtesy of The Nation

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10 August 2026

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The shooting in Nonthaburi is very tragic incident. However it seems that Thailand is panicking now. In my opinion there is nothing that can prevent such incidents, they can happen everywhere, schools, shoppingmalls, streets, as we can see in other countries too.

But Thailand has another big problem, which is corruption which results in not enforcing laws. How is it possible to buy on markets freely guns? Police is walking around and doing nothing as an example, same for big knifes. Everybody can buy weapons and there are no strict regulations how to store them. Often we read that kids were playing with a gun and shot as it was loaded.. A lack of awareness by everyone.. parents, education, police and Government. Now panicking with laws and regulations, but what will happen?? Nothing in fact. Sadly it is hot news now, as the fire in Bangkok, but the corruption continues, the lack of enforcements continue and in a few weeks everything is business as usual. To prevent accidents like this or fire or even less traffic deaths, reforms must be made, and there is a need not for more laws, but for a working force to check and control and enforce the existing laws

All fine and good and a typical Thai response. But as we've learned in the states, even with an armed cop at schools, school shootings can still happen. It's a sad fact of life.

6 hours ago, Georgealbert said:

Temporary checks for illegal items have already begun at school entrances. Prasert said he was preparing a ministerial announcement allowing administrators and teachers responsible for discipline to search bags and belongings of pupils in at-risk groups for weapons, including knives and guns.

They caught the shooter with a BB gun and a knife on two different occasions before the shooting and the school done nothing about it.

The issue here is the same as the issue Thailand's faced for decades, and that is an incredibly ineffective and incompetent PM. He was the worst man for the job at this point in Thailand's evolution. And he has a history of not following up.

I am hopeful but my expectations are zero.

Why does this have to take so long. That’s always the issue. Meetings and more meetings to try to get anything done. Which we all know will not be followed up for long. Same as the double decker buses being removed or safe buses to get kids to and from school. A lot of talk, but not much else.

21 minutes ago, jcmj said:

Why does this have to take so long. That’s always the issue. Meetings and more meetings to try to get anything done. Which we all know will not be followed up for long. Same as the double decker buses being removed or safe buses to get kids to and from school. A lot of talk, but not much else.

Indeed- a lot of hot air, wringing of hands- statements how everyone will learn valuable lessons from this tragedy blah blah blah - and in reality precious little will change

"The proposed nationwide framework will cover mental health screening, school security, emergency preparedness and bullying, while immediate support and tighter entry checks are being introduced at the affected school."

All these controls are for detecting problems not for preventing them. To prevent them there should be srict gun control. As I said before why should I be inconvencied and put at risk, so my pshycho next-door neighbor gets to keep his gun. The first question the police should have asked is why the Grandfather had a gun and amunition to kill many people.

3 minutes ago, L- Lifeline said:

Indeed- a lot of hot air, wringing of hands- statements how everyone will learn valuable lessons from this tragedy blah blah blah - and in reality precious little will change

Agree. Where is the mention of gun control. If they ban foreigners from having guns why not Thais as well. Oh I forgot, all Thais are sane and responsible. My bad.

1 hour ago, spidermike007 said:

The issue here is the same as the issue Thailand's faced for decades, and that is an incredibly ineffective and incompetent PM. He was the worst man for the job at this point in Thailand's evolution. And he has a history of not following up.

I am hopeful but my expectations are zero.

Your expectations are well grounded and immersed in reality. Not a question of "if" there will be another school shooting, but a question of "when".

same as road safety, as booze and ganja rules..

4 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

The issue here is the same as the issue Thailand's faced for decades, and that is an incredibly ineffective and incompetent PM. He was the worst man for the job at this point in Thailand's evolution.

Ain't that the truth. Do you remember how he handled Trump's phone call? "Err, talk to the generals please, I'm not in charge". What a pathetic excuse for a leader.

9 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

The shooting in Nonthaburi is very tragic incident. However it seems that Thailand is panicking now. In my opinion there is nothing that can prevent such incidents, they can happen everywhere, schools, shoppingmalls, streets, as we can see in other countries too.

But Thailand has another big problem, which is corruption which results in not enforcing laws. How is it possible to buy on markets freely guns? Police is walking around and doing nothing as an example, same for big knifes. Everybody can buy weapons and there are no strict regulations how to store them. Often we read that kids were playing with a gun and shot as it was loaded.. A lack of awareness by everyone.. parents, education, police and Government. Now panicking with laws and regulations, but what will happen?? Nothing in fact. Sadly it is hot news now, as the fire in Bangkok, but the corruption continues, the lack of enforcements continue and in a few weeks everything is business as usual. To prevent accidents like this or fire or even less traffic deaths, reforms must be made, and there is a need not for more laws, but for a working force to check and control and enforce the existing laws

1. Physical access (works without new construction)

• Single-point entry during arrival/dismissal windows using existing gates + staff/volunteer parents as spotters, not new infrastructure

• Visitor sign-in log at the one open gate, ID held at desk during visit

• Repurpose existing CCTV feeds to a live-monitored screen at the guard post during school hours, not just recorded footage reviewed after the fact

2. Bag/weapon checks (matches what Prasert is already proposing)

• Randomized spot checks at entry for at-risk-flagged pupils, done by trained discipline staff, not blanket searches of all 3,500 kids daily (impractical and legally sensitive)

• Clear, published criteria for who gets flagged, to avoid arbitrary targeting

3. Early-warning / referral system

• Guidance teachers as first screening layer (the Train the Trainer model already proposed) — cheap to scale since it uses existing staff

• Traffy Fondue reporting channel + a physical “safe zone” box for kids who won’t use a digital channel

4. Emergency response

• Lockdown drill protocol (classroom door locks or barricade procedure — many Thai classrooms genuinely lack locking doors, so a low-cost fix is furniture-barricade drills rather than assuming hardware upgrades)

• Clear internal alert signal (PA code phrase) distinct from fire alarm

5. Budget-realistic sequencing

• Phase 1 (low cost): entry-point consolidation, visitor logs, drills, guidance-teacher screening

• Phase 2 (moderate cost): door hardware for classrooms, expanded CCTV monitoring

• Phase 3 (higher cost): dedicated security staff, integrated ID systems

89 days to go and I did my part

Considering that the Thai police force is officially between 210-230k officers, then surely they can rotate officers to be present at schools and universities everyday... however, arming teachers is a terrible idea.

Law enforcement is about being visible and present and when they are around the deterrent is strong, be proactive rather than reactive.

90 days? Is this a plan to redesign the entire national education system?

19 days would be too long - if there are any copy cat killers out there.

How about 9 days?

If a large wave wiped out a medium sized Thai coastal city - say, population 50,000 people - would it take 90 days to work out what to do?

Well, we will see how things are in a month once well meaning intention needs to be crystallized into stubborn routine and effectiveness.

I have my doubts. I walked out of Makkasan station four days after the train crash there and I counted 9 police officers who were visible watching that traffic stopped as they are supposed to. Two weeks later there were none and traffic was piling through just as they did previously.

So will these measures be implemented in every school on a continuing basis?

5 hours ago, Sir Dude said:

Considering that the Thai police force is officially between 210-230k officers, then surely they can rotate officers to be present at schools and universities everyday... however, arming teachers is a terrible idea.

Law enforcement is about being visible and present and when they are around the deterrent is strong, be proactive rather than reactive.

Police ARE present at many schools every day. At least the schools that I observe.

They direct traffic outside at least the major ones morning and afternoon.

12 hours ago, wensiensheng said:

Police ARE present at many schools every day. At least the schools that I observe.

They direct traffic outside at least the major ones morning and afternoon.

They deal with traffic only. Passage of students in an out of a school is taken care of by teachers and the schools security guards.

3 minutes ago, DavisH said:

They deal with traffic only. Passage of students in an out of a school is taken care of by teachers and the schools security guards.

3 minutes ago, DavisH said:

They deal with traffic only. Passage of students in an out of a school is taken care of by teachers and the schools security guards.

Of course. My post explicitly says that they are there on traffic duty.

The post to which I replied stated that surely police officers could be rotated so as to be present at schools and went on to say a visible presence would be a deterrent.

The point I was making is that they are already there ( no rotation needed) and visible (and armed). Although traffic is their primary responsibility, perhaps they have eyes in their head as well as brains and are capable of multi tasking if asked to do so. They are certainly available for rapid response.

The issue is that rural schools probably don’t have them because there are no traffic jams. Indeed, an actual police presence might be miles away at the nearest town.

Edited August 11Aug 11 by wensiensheng