Risk Casebook

15-year-old Jenna Chan from St Joseph's Institution International died after being struck by a moving boat propeller during a snorkelling excursion in the Maldives. She was participating in a whale shark research programme organised by an external vendor. By July 2025, her parents reported being trapped in a "jurisdictional vacuum" — unable to obtain answers from either Maldivian or Singaporean authorities.

17-year-old Kaira Karmakar at United World College of South East Asia died in a road accident in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She was on a structured "unchaperoned" school trip — UWCSEA's programme intentionally sends older students abroad without accompanying adults as a developmental exercise. Cambodia has one of Southeast Asia's highest road traffic fatality rates, a risk not flagged in destination risk assessment.

Muhammad Zulfan Iqbal Zaiful, 16, drowned on 25 November 2024 during a recovery training session. His football coach instructed players to use the school's 5-metre-deep diving pool for recovery. Witnesses reported he was seen sinking and remained underwater for 15–20 minutes before being pulled out — unconscious and bleeding. The coach had no water safety qualification.

A 9-year-old student fell approximately 11 metres (4 storeys) from a flying fox during a programme run by contracted company Innotrek. Freelance instructor Alvina Lee Peiyu had been reassigned to the activity at the last minute to cover a colleague and failed to properly secure the student's safety harness. The student suffered multiple fractures. Lee was convicted and jailed in February 2024.

A 15-year-old student died during a high-element obstacle course at a Singapore school. A volunteer instructor was sentenced to 6 months' imprisonment. The incident led to a two-year national suspension of all height-based outdoor activities in Singapore schools. MOE subsequently mandated that schools must only engage accredited operators and qualified instructors.

An international school teacher on Koh Samui was arrested in January 2023 after being accused of molesting a kindergarten pupil multiple times between August and November 2022 — a period of approximately three months. No public information is available on whether the school conducted enhanced criminal background checks or whether safeguarding monitoring mechanisms were in place.

Canadian teacher Neil Bantleman and Indonesian teaching assistant Ferdinand Tjiong were convicted of sexually abusing kindergarten students at the Jakarta Intercultural School. Initially sentenced then controversially acquitted, Indonesia's Supreme Court reversed the acquittal in 2016, issuing 11-year sentences. The case exposed deep weaknesses in the sector's reliance on local legal systems for safeguarding enforcement.

In February 2025, students and teachers from four Hong Kong secondary schools on a 5-day exchange to Huangshan, China reported gastroenteritis symptoms. Of 43 participants, 11 students and 2 teachers fell ill. One student reported the first evening's meal had a "sour taste" initially dismissed as local cuisine. The outbreak spread via person-to-person transmission on the tour bus.

Elementary school field trip participation in South Korea collapsed from 99% to 51% in two years as courts increasingly held individual teachers criminally liable for student accidents during trips. Teachers are refusing to organise trips rather than risk personal criminal liability for incidents outside their control.

On 1 October 2024, a bus carrying 38 students and 6 teachers from Uthai Thani Province caught fire on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road in suburban Bangkok. A front tyre burst, causing the vehicle to hit a barrier. Fire broke out in the lower section of the natural gas-powered bus — passengers were trapped. The bus was approximately 50 years old. All school field trips across Thailand were subsequently suspended.

A Singaporean student on a school trip to Bangkok sleepwalked from his hotel room to the lobby during the night. Unable to open a door, he kicked through the glass panel, sustaining lacerations to his lower limbs. International SOS was contacted and arranged a medical team and commercial stretcher evacuation. The student was safely repatriated to Singapore within 4 days.

On 17 April 2024, Mobile Guardian — a device management application widely used by Singapore MOE schools — suffered an unauthorised access breach. Names and email addresses of parents and staff from 127 schools were compromised. This illustrates the data risk schools take when sharing student and parent PII with any external organisation without adequate verification of their data security posture.

Cara Munn, 15, at The Hotchkiss School in Connecticut contracted tick-borne encephalitis during a school trip to China in 2007, resulting in permanent brain damage including the loss of speech and motor function. A Connecticut jury found the school negligent for failing to adequately warn students and parents about tick-borne illness risks for the specific region visited.

PGL Travel Limited was prosecuted following a child's finger injury at its Marchants Hill centre. Investigation found the company had recorded 520 similar finger-entrapment injuries across its sites since 2009. Finger guards — a known and available remedy — had not been installed during this 14-year period.

A 15-year-old student sustained serious spinal injuries in a coach incident during a school trip to Italy. The severity of the injury means she faces ongoing surgical risk. A settlement was reached comprising a lump sum and annual lifetime care payments, index-linked for inflation.

Five teenage students and their group leader died of exposure during a winter expedition on the Cairngorm plateau. The incident prompted national regulatory reform including mandatory qualifications for mountain expedition leaders and formal weather and conditions assessment requirements. The national competence standards TripTrust's framework reflects were born directly from this incident.

William Vahey taught at ten international schools across four continents. Investigations following his death in 2014 found he had committed offences against students at multiple institutions over decades. Schools did not share safeguarding or employment information as he moved between roles, and background checks did not surface a prior conviction.

A bus carrying 42 university students overturned on the East-West Highway in Gerik, Perak, resulting in 15 deaths and 33 injuries. Investigation found that the licensed transport operator had transferred its permit and vehicle to an unlicensed company in breach of Malaysia's Tourism Industry Act 1992.

35 students experienced gastroenteritis following a school camp. The caterer involved was subsequently found to have been connected to a separate food illness incident at another school camp six months earlier. Singapore's Ministry of Health and Singapore Food Agency investigated the incident.