RYB Education, US-listed kindergarten network at the centre of child abuse claims
Before this week’s allegations, the company apologised in April for ‘some teachers’ serious misconduct’ after a pupil was hit and pushed
RYB Education, a New York-listed company claiming to help preschool children take their “first step to a colourful life”, is at the centre of multiple allegations of child abuse concerning one of its kindergartens in Beijing.
Some teachers at the RYB Education New World kindergarten in Chaoyang district have been suspended and a police investigation is under way after parents claimed earlier this week that children had been molested, found with needle marks on their bodies, “made to stand naked”, “locked in a dark room”, and given unidentified pills and a brown syrup. The allegations concern at least eight children in two classes.
It comes after the company apologised on its Weibo microblog account in April for “some teachers’ serious misconduct” after a pupil was hit and pushed by a teacher at another kindergarten in Beijing. The teacher involved and the school principal were both suspended.
The early childhood education provider confirmed on Friday that some parents had filed reports of alleged abuse at the school which police were investigating. But RYB had also told police some of the accusations were false, and that some people were trying to frame the company, according to its statement.
