Students claim they were forced to wear bells and treated like cows by a teacher
BY CHAN LI LEEN AND MANJIT KAUR
Yarnis Kasuma Dewi, mother of Mohd Izat Iqbal showing the police report she made during the press conference.
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SUNGKAI: Two Year Four pupils from SJKC Khai Meng are claiming that they were made to wear bells around their necks like cows by a teacher for not doing their homework.
Their parents claimed that the teacher had also asked them to pull grass from the field and asked the boys to eat it on Thursday.
When Tanjung Malim MP Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan spoke to the school’s headmistress to seek clarification over the issue, she admitted that the pupils were asked to wear the bells around the neck but they were not forced to eat grass.
She said the teacher had apologised to the parents over the incident.
State Education Department director Muhamad Roli Hassan said he had asked the district education office to look into the matter, and was awaiting the report.
When reporters arrived at the school they were denied entry.
According to one of the boy's uncles, businessman Muktasim Hashim, the teacher had gone overboard.
“He had caned the boys twice each before that but chose to humiliate them by making them wear bells around their necks and calling them cows in front of the class.
“If that was not bad enough, he took pictures of them on his mobile phone and threatened to post them on Facebook before asking the boys to eat grass or get another 10 strokes of the rotan," Muktasim told reporters here Saturday.
He alleged that although the boys were spared from eating the grass without being caned, their pictures were shown to pupils in other classes.
Muktasim claimed the teacher was also unfair as he had let off two other pupils who had not handed in their homework.
“The teacher apologised when we met him at the police station yesterday but that is insufficient and in no way remedies the situation.
“We want him transferred out immediately,” said the uncle of Muhammad Naswinder Muhammad Hamid.
Housewife Yarnis Kasuma Dewi Zainal Ariffin said she had enrolled her son Mohd Izat Iqbal Mohd Harith in a Chinese school so that he could learn a different language.
“The teacher should be made to leave as it is he who had done wrong. I will not transfer my son to any other school.
“Why should he be penalised and denied the chance at an education in the Chinese medium due to someone else's mistake?” she asked, noting that SJKC Khai Meng was the only Chinese primary school here.
