2007 07: School kids lodge police report over injuries inflicted by caning

The Star Online. News. Nation. Sunday July 22, 2007

MIRI: Seven 13-year old students from SMK Long Lama have lodged police reports claiming that they had suffered injuries to their backs and buttocks because of repeated canings by their teacher.

The Form One students are from the remote school located more than 300km inland from Miri, in the East Malaysian state of Sarawak.

They have also lodged complaints at the Miri Education Department following the incident that they alleged took place on Thursday night at their school's hostel.

The parents of the students came down to Miri over the weekend to seek advice from the authorities here after lodging the police reports at the Long Lama police station.

In their reports, they claimed that a male teacher had caned their children between 10 and 20 times each after he had found the hostel in a mess, with rubbish strewn around.

The students suffered physical and mental anguish because of the incident, and some of them had become sick after the caning, said the parents.

The parents claimed that their children could not sleep properly for days after the caning because of the constant pain due to wounds to the skin inflicted by the cane.

The victims' parents want the Education Department to take appropriate disciplinary action against the teacher concerned, and to ensure that such aggressive behaviour was not repeated.

SMK Long Lama has about 500 students, most of whom from deep interior settlements.

Three days ago, more than 200 students from a school in Sibu were forced to squat in a fish pond for more than an hour.

These girls were punished because a warden found toilet bowls littered with sanitary pads, it was alleged.