Benchmarking Saudi Public Schools Using a Safety Balanced Scorecard (BSC) Approach

Citizens in newly industrialized countries are demanding higher levels of safety in their built environments, particularly the education environments of their students. Saudi Arabia is an example of a country that is beginning to put a microscope on its current safety practices and performance in an attempt to reduce incident and accident rates. In the authors' prior research, a comprehensive safety performance evaluation framework was developed following the principles of the well-established balanced scorecard (BSC). The statistically formulated Saudi school safety performance BSC included 5 salient perspectives: P1: Safety Management and Leadership (5 factors); P2: Safety Learning and Training (3 factors); P3: Safety Policy, Procedures and Processes (3 factors); P4: Workforce Safety Culture (3 factors); and P5: Safety Performance (3 factors). This subsequent investigation applies the developed safety performance BSC in order to benchmark and compare 6 Saudi public schools. Comparisons were made between schools based on their gender (male and female schools), regions of Saudi Arabia, and school education level (i.e., primary, elementary and secondary). The developed safety performance BSC framework and associated benchmarking methodology applied in this study can aid Ministry of Education officers and school executives in better and more strategically monitoring and managing their respective schools by considering the influence of lead and lag indicators of safety performance.