Children's rights advocates are calling for greater education for teachers about the effects of corporal punishment after a nine-year-old Malaysian boy died 15 hours after he was caned.
Media reports said a postmortem had shown that Chan Qi Xian, a Year Three student in the southern state of Negeri Sembilan, died from bleeding on the brain unrelated to the caning. However, his death has shone the spotlight on the controversial practice.
Qi Xian died in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the day after he was caned on the hands by a female teacher, the New Straits Times newspaper reported.
Noran Fauziah Yaakub, adjunct professor of psychology at the Higher Education Learning Programme University in Kuala Lumpur, said she was shocked by the news that the boy had reportedly been caned for not doing his homework.
'At the same time I'm aware that caning, even on primary school children, is practised in some schools. It implies that the school ethos allows such disciplinary methods, even on primary school children,' said Dr Noran, who is helping to implement 'positive discipline' approaches in eight schools in collaboration with Unicef and the Ministry of Education.
Dr Noran said under Malaysian law, caning should be carried out only for repeated serious offences and should be done to boys only.