Education Minister Mahdzir Khalid has asked for both schools and parents to be considerate when it comes to tasks given to students.

Mahdzir said this when asked to comment on viral reports concerning students who were told to sit on tarred road for coming late to school and on parents who had admonished a teacher for asking their child to wipe the black board.

“Every little thing wants to be viralled. Those days, when a teacher hit us and we tell (our parents), our mothers will hit us more.

“I think there must be consideration be it from schools or parents. There must be some flexibility," said Mahdzir in a press conference held in Kuala Lumpur today.

He believes that teachers do not give assignments to students as a form of punishment, rather, as a class activity.

“If that, too, wants to be classified as abuse, then students cannot do anything," he added.

He however admitted that it is fair enough for action to be taken should a particular task is deemed as going against the standard operating procedure.

“If the Parent-Teacher Association (PIBG), for example, thinks that something is extreme, they can have a meeting and then take action.

“We have 10,179 schools in this country, imagine if every day there are 2,000 complaints and they go viral.

“I hope society can be considerate so that it would be a win-win situation for all quarters,” he said.

Due to the advent of social media, video recordings are usually made to record out of the ordinary instances and then posted online.

At times, this can be an eye opener for many who are in the dark over certain issues but some have also misused social media to complain on petty matters.