The primary school teacher has now been suspended, and facing a probe
Disturbing incidents of teachers physically assaulting students are on the rise in China. In another recent incident, a primary school teacher in China is facing a probe after she was caught violently assaulting two students. According to the South China Morning Post, the unnamed maths teacher at Jinquan Primary School in Hunan province was filmed by another teacher as she carried out the attacks on February 28.
A video of the incident that has gone viral on social media in China, shows the teacher banging a girl’s head on a desk and then punching a boy’s face in her office. The video begins with the teacher pinching the girl’s face, pulling her hair back and then banging her head on the desk. When the boy approaches the teacher, she grabs his face and hurls a textbook at him, while yelling at the girl.
”You do the maths, you do the maths,” the teacher screams in the video while asking her for the answer to an arithmetic question. Meanwhile, the girl remains silent and keeps her head down as the teacher continues her assault.
When the boy passes his homework to her, she glances at it and then goes on to punch his face, and throws the girl’s homework at him.
The story has caused widespread public anger in China, with many calling the teacher ”cruel” and ”horrible”. The teacher has since been suspended while the police and Education Bureau are investigating the case.
Last year, a nine-year-old girl had to undergo emergency treatment for a broken skull after she was allegedly beaten by her school teacher. The accused teacher, who was arrested, used a metal triangular scale ruler to strike the young girl on her head, leaving a 5cm deep wound that resulted in a fractured skull. After the social media outrage, the school said it would prioritise the safety of its students and cooperate with the police investigation.
The worrying trend of student abuse by teachers in China has been persisting despite a government ban on corporal punishment in schools dating back to 1986.