What is the quintessential quality a school should possess? Of the many possibilities, safety, is an answer greatly encompassing in both its importance and contents. But, what really are the criteria that make a school safe?

First on the list is physical safety. Though, widely fulfilled in the developed world, many schools do not reach the level that might be considered safe. For a school to be safe in this regard it has to have a safely engineered building, to ensure safety during learning, a safe environment and road to it, to ensure safety before and after learning and it has to have safe principles, that ensure that the learning itself is not dangerous to the students.

Secondly, psychological safety. This is a requirement hard to achieve in any school, rich or poor, private or public. Just as before, layers also exist, starting with psychological safe work, meaning that the compulsory work is not overwhelming, stressful or otherwise inappropriate, next, safe student-student relationships, ensuring that students do not harass, attack or distress other students, and ending with safe student-teacher relationships, ensuring that teachers work objectively, teach within the safety principles and interact with the students appropriately to their status.

Though, not primarily linked to safety, the third criterion is that the material that is taught to the students gives them the right lessons and is not created with malicious intent, thus leading the students to a safe life. The main principles are, the use of verified and unbiased information, thus the students are not misled, deprived of potentially useful information or of the right to create opinion using objective sources, next is the encouragement of critical thinking, teaching the students to develop and use it both in and out of school, thus leading them to solve problems more quickly, organise effectively and analyse objectively, and lastly is the inclusion of useful information, thus ensuring that the students understand how to operate independently, fulfil their societal duties responsibly and live safely.

In the end, this might not be all as in the contemporary age exist many criteria that will change over time and should be tended to carefully, and so the conclusion is that a school fulfils both the lasting and dynamic needs to become a safe one.