When something goes wrong
on a school trip,
someone's child doesn't come home.
Every year, thousands of international schools send children on trips and to residential programmes with external providers who have never been independently assessed. There is no global standard. There is no shared framework. There is no way for a school to know what they don't know.
TripTrust is a proposal to change that — not as a commercial product, but as a quality infrastructure that serves the whole sector.
children and teachers
died when a 50-year-old school bus caught fire in Thailand, 2024
university students
killed when an unlicensed bus overturned on a Malaysian mountain highway, 2025
of abuse went undetected
at an international school in Thailand before a teacher was arrested, 2023
four continents, ten international schools
before William Vahey's offending was discovered — because no institution shared safeguarding information
The Structural Gap
No one is responsible
for the gap between schools and providers.
Membership organisations like COBIS, CIS, and FOBISIA accredit schools. Governments inspect schools. Outdoor education bodies certify instructors in their home countries. But nobody independently assesses the external trip and camp providers that schools entrust with their students' safety.
The result is that every school repeats the same due diligence, often incompletely, with no way to verify what they've been told. In South Korea, this has already caused the collapse of the field trip sector — teachers are refusing to organise trips rather than bear personal criminal liability for incidents outside their control.
That collapse is a warning. When no trusted standard exists, the entire system of educational travel becomes untenable.
The accountability gap
South Korea: A Sector in Collapse
Elementary school field trip participation fell from 99% to 51% in two years after courts held individual teachers personally criminally liable for accidents. Teachers are now refusing to organise trips. This is the direct consequence of the absence of a trusted third-party quality framework.
Read Case EA-03Voices from the sector
The people closest to this problem
are asking for a standard.
“The lack of a global provider standard is genuinely one of the biggest unaddressed risks in international education. Schools are exposed and they don't even know it.”
International Safeguarding Advisor
Independent Consultant
“I've been asking COBIS and CIS for something like this for five years. We're spending tens of thousands of pounds in EVC time every year doing checks that any certified platform could do once and share.”
Educational Visits Coordinator
British International School, Singapore
“In Korea, teachers have stopped organising trips rather than face personal criminal liability. That's what happens when there's no trusted standard — the entire system collapses under the weight of individual responsibility.”
International Education Policy Researcher
Conference on International Schools
What We're Building
Quality infrastructure
for the whole sector.
TripTrust is not a directory, a booking platform, or a commercial product. It is a proposal for an independent accreditation body — purpose-built for the international school context, governed by experts, and free for every school to use.
An independent quality framework
8 Quality Indicator domains developed with safeguarding experts, outdoor education advisors, and international school leaders. Not a commercial product — a public good.
Evidence-based assessment
Providers submit evidence across every domain. Trained assessors make the final call. Accreditation is earned through scrutiny, not purchased through a subscription.
Free access for schools
Any school can access the directory, download pre-verified documentation packs, and read community feedback at no cost. The standard serves schools, not the other way round.
Built for the international context
The framework addresses specifically international challenges: cross-border criminal vetting, overseas travel risk, jurisdictional gaps in crisis response, and multi-country provider operations.
Child safeguarding at the centre
QI 2 — Safeguarding — is the most detailed and demanding domain. It addresses DBS equivalents, safer recruitment, online safety, site security, and staff codes of conduct.
A learning resource, not just a badge
The Risk Casebook documents real incidents and maps each one to specific quality gaps. It exists to educate the sector — regardless of whether an organisation ever applies for accreditation.
The Quality Framework
8 domains.
Every dimension of child safety.
Each domain was designed by examining real incidents — not theoretical frameworks. Every indicator can be traced to a case in the Risk Casebook where its absence contributed to harm.
The framework is openly documented. Any organisation — school, provider, membership body, or government — is welcome to read, reference, or build upon it.
Read the full frameworkRisk Management
Staff competence, activity risk assessments, emergency procedures, incident reporting and learning
Safeguarding
Policy, training, criminal vetting across jurisdictions, site security, reporting procedures
Food Safety
Catering standards, food hygiene certification, allergen and dietary management
Transport
Vehicle safety, driver compliance, contractor vetting, route risk assessment
Education Quality
Curriculum alignment, inclusion, supervision during all programme periods
Communication & Governance
Third-party vetting, data protection, informed consent, insurance verification
Overseas Travel
Destination health risk, travel risk assessment, crisis communication, repatriation
School Documentation
Pre-verified 7-section pack for school approval — reducing EVC workload from 14 hours to 30 minutes
Risk Casebook
Real incidents.
Documented quality gaps.
The casebook is a public resource. It documents real incidents, identifies the quality gaps that contributed to each one, and maps them to the specific Quality Indicators that would have detected the risk before departure.
It is intended for EVCs, safeguarding leads, school governors, membership organisations, and policy makers — not to sell a platform, but to demonstrate the cost of the gap that exists today.
Open the CasebookFeatured cases
View all 20+Thailand school bus fire
23 dead — 50-year-old bus, 2024
SJI International, Maldives
Student fatality — unvetted marine operator, 2024
William Vahey
4 continents, 10 schools, decades of abuse
Munn v. Hotchkiss
USD 41.5 million — tick-borne encephalitis, China
South Korea field trip collapse
99% → 51% participation: teachers face criminal liability
Who This Is For
We're not pitching
to businesses.
TripTrust is a proposal for a sector-wide quality standard. We're asking membership organisations, school networks, safeguarding bodies, and parent groups to engage with this idea — and help shape what it becomes.
Membership Organisations
COBIS, CIS, FOBISIA, AAIE, ECIS
Partner with us to embed the quality framework in member expectations and share the casebook with your network.
Advisory board opportunitiesSchools & EVCs
International school leaders and educational visits coordinators
Tell us what a quality standard needs to include. Register founding school interest and help shape the framework.
Register school interestSafeguarding & Safety Bodies
ISOS Group, safeguarding leads, outdoor education advisors
Review the QI 2 Safeguarding domain. Challenge us on what it misses. Help us get it right.
Read the frameworkPolicy & Research
Education ministries, university researchers, think tanks
The casebook is an open resource. Use it, cite it, challenge it. The gap it documents is real.
Open the casebookRelevant to members and partners of
Get Involved
Help us build
the standard.
We are looking for founding schools, early providers, advisory board members, and organisations willing to champion this standard within their networks. The gap is real. The cost is documented. The question is whether the sector will act before the next incident, or after.