Chinese primary school teacher suspended over video showing her slapping boy in face
- Police and education authorities are investigating after woman is filmed losing her temper and repeatedly striking pupil
- Several parents allege other children have been assaulted since she took over the class
A primary school in northwest China is under investigation and a teacher has been suspended after she was filmed losing her temper and repeatedly slapping a boy in the face, according to local media.
The woman, identified only by her surname Yang, was a Year Six teacher at Huaqingyuan Experimental Primary School in Xian, Shaanxi province, Huashang Daily reported on Thursday.
Its principal, surnamed Xu, said police and local education authorities were investigating the school and it was providing counselling for affected pupils.
It came after video footage of the incident was circulated among parents, who complained to the school. The video shows Yang berating a boy for staying overnight at his classmate’s home without telling his parents.
“I manage more than 50 students – I’m so busy. Don’t you make your parents have to ask me about this student being missing, that student being dead and that student having his leg broken,” the teacher yells at the class in the video.
She is then seen telling the boy to close the classroom door, dragging him to the corner next to the door and slapping him in the face eight times.
Xu told the newspaper that the boy’s parents had reached a settlement with Yang at the police station.
But several parents claimed that it was not the first time the teacher had struck a pupil. They alleged many of the children in the class had been assaulted by the teacher since she took it over two years ago and said they had complained to the school, according to the report.
“My son wasn’t good at his studies and was always getting hit by this teacher,” one mother, surnamed Li, told the newspaper. “Sometimes when he came home and told me, it seemed like he had almost become used to it.”
Li said she wanted to go to the school and talk to the teacher, but her son had pleaded with her not to, fearing it would make the situation worse.
Another parent claimed she had taken action and reported the teacher to the school, but nothing changed.
“I’m just very concerned about the children’s mental health now,” the parent was quoted as saying.
