COMMENT The Education Ministry has to nip the problem at the bud each time school bullying occurs to prevent its recurrence, especially when an adult is also involved.

In a video clip that went viral on social media, a young secondary school primary was seen complaining against her fellow student.

The complainant was seen accusing her schoolmate of a wrongdoing which she herself had not seen, and depended on an eyewitness’ account.

The boy had to kneel before the girl, pleading that he was not the one who had done it to the girl’s property but the girl kept insisting that she had “to defend her own rights”.

Such school bullying, especially before an adult, should never have happened in the first place, more so when the adult is a teacher who should have been more professional in the way he dealt with the problem.

Ordinary teacher

At the same time, a poster has been circulated on WhatsApp with the name of the school and the teacher concerned identified.

Titled, ‘Indian Boy Bully Details’, the poster is sent out together with the video clip. It is confirmed that there was such a teacher at SMK Seri Semantan, Temerloh.

When I made efforts to contact the school principal to enquire about the case, I left my phone number but there was no courtesy call or whatever from the principal concerned to explain the scenario.

At the same time, I was only able to confirm that such incident had recently occurred. According to one of the staff members, there was some commotion recently and the state education department is in the midst of investigating the case.

According to the staffer, the teacher named on the poster is an ordinary teacher. The term he used was ‘Penolong guru’, a term which is commonly used for ordinary teachers without a post.

It is learnt that the teacher is still carrying out his normal duties when the phone call was made. There was no sign that he has been suspended after state education department officials conducted a probe into the case.

Clearly, the teacher in this case was not even the disciplinary teacher and he should not have handled the case.

What saddens, in fact, angers me the most is to see this boy having to kneel down in front of the girl throughout the entire session. This whole scenario was most humiliating to the boy who was accused of wrongdoing.

I wonder what this boy would grow up feeling about the school system, his fellow schoolmates and the teachers who were tasked to build their characters. When you have such teachers running around in our school, where are we as a nation?

What kind of education?

Stern actions should be taken against the school teacher concerned for staging out this humiliating experience for the boy.

If the state education department has carried out its investigation, it is time to confront such school bullying which involves the teachers themselves.

There is no room for tolerance, especially in a multiracial, multi-cultural and multi-religious society like ours.

As parents, we cannot allow such teachers to continue teaching our children.

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.

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