2012-08-26, 10:28 PM
Actually the government has no play in this respect. It advocates discipline and harmony and unity (and wadever else you wish to throw in here), but the Ministry of Education has no prescribed directives as to what kind of punishment would be met out if one breaks school rules i.e. it is entirely within the discretion of the school to punish a student for going over the line. MOE would only tell schools to give suitable disciplinary action, and would give examples of punishment e.g. caning, suspension, rustication for the super severe ones, and writing lines, detention, standing outside/behind the classroom during lessons for those little things. But these days I'm fairly confident that MOE has added a couple of unwritten line before that: counsel the student first, and then inform the parents first before meting out punishment. Why did you do that, what were you thinking, are you repentent, would you seek to mend your ways etc.; these are then followed by "your child was/has _______________, and we would like to inform you that these actions are against school rules, and would lead to disciplinary action [maybe with a "such as..."] whether in the form of a phone call or a letter". Simple. Usually 2 letters are given out, since schools like to play it safe now, but...
So the teacher is undeniably in the wrong for being too... err... hot-headed [we still don't know for sure what transpired her to do that!], and the government has nothing to do with it. The other 2 principals are simply providing an example of what they would have done instead [and also show just how careful schools have to be when dealing with disciplinary action, for the fear of getting into trouble with parents!]. I talked about all the uniform issue because some here seemed to have an issue with it.
It's not any exam. It's a national exam - all primary school students take that exam (save those in private schools). Screw it up and you're pretty screwed for many years to come. Takes too long to repair that damage.
Hadriel
So the teacher is undeniably in the wrong for being too... err... hot-headed [we still don't know for sure what transpired her to do that!], and the government has nothing to do with it. The other 2 principals are simply providing an example of what they would have done instead [and also show just how careful schools have to be when dealing with disciplinary action, for the fear of getting into trouble with parents!]. I talked about all the uniform issue because some here seemed to have an issue with it.
It's not any exam. It's a national exam - all primary school students take that exam (save those in private schools). Screw it up and you're pretty screwed for many years to come. Takes too long to repair that damage.
Hadriel