Dubai: Bullying is the top school safety concern for UAE-based parents, the latest UAE School Safety Survey suggests.

Results of the survey, held every two years by Axis Communications, were recently announced, showing 52 per cent of parents citing bullying as their biggest worry concerning children at school.

The second biggest concern (42 per cent) was risks in the school playground, followed by “student-perpetrated violence” (37 per cent) and “outside-perpetrated violence” (37 per cent), which refers to incidents outside the gated school campus.

The survey ran for over two weeks before the summer and polled over 950 parents, over 85 per cent of whom have children aged 3 to 15 in schools, and over half of whom have lived in the UAE for more than eight years.

Despite the concerns, 92 per cent of parents are satisfied with the current security measures in schools, the survey suggests.

However, three in four of the respondents would like to see more investments in safety and security measures such as surveillance, access controls, advanced fire detection systems and security guards.

The survey also showed that 58 per cent of parents experienced entry control while going in and out of the school premises. Meanwhile, three-fourths of parents believe that surveillance cameras managed by the school do not infringe on privacy.

Marwan Khoury, regional marketing manager, Axis Communications, said: “Axis has been working with the education sector here in the UAE as well as around the world and we continue to work towards the safety of the children as well as the school staff. Our learnings enable us to constantly keep the school staff updated on the latest technologies for the institution as well as its application to safe guard children. Our objective is to provide an additional level of peace of mind to parents.”

Axis Communications, a security solutions and network video provider, had first conducted the survey in 2014, in which 92 per cent of responding parents had backed implementing video surveillance as a means to keep children safe.

Since then, there is a five per cent increase in the number, with 97 per cent of parents backing video surveillance at key points to keep an eye on children, as well as to speed up response time in case of emergencies.