China
15:51, 18-Nov-2017
Chinese kindergarten teacher accused of slap instigation
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A kindergarten in southwest China is being investigated over allegations that children in its care were instigated to slap each other by a teacher who has since been fired.
The claims center on a kindergarten in Wanzhou District in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality.
Under the bizarre ritual, children in the teacher's class took turns to "discipline" their classmates in the name of a "young assistant," and those who disobeyed would get slapped as punishment.
The treatment came to light when a mother, surname Huang, told the China News Service that a kid was slapped by his classmate.
Almost all 30 kids in the class had been involved, either supervising one another or getting beaten, according to a parents’ WeChat group on Wednesday.
Parents then went to the kindergarten on Thursday morning to dig for details.
After their "repeated requests," the kindergarten scheduled a meeting that afternoon.
The teacher, a temporary employee, has been fired, the kindergarten confirmed at the meeting and said a professional will take over until the graduation of the class.
The local education authorities are said to have received an apology from the teacher and the director of the kindergarten. Out of concern for the children's safety, surveillance cameras have been installed in all classrooms within a month.
The case is still under investigation, according to Wanzhou authorities.
It comes a week after a childcare center in Shanghai was shut down after staff were caught on camera physically abusing the children in the center.
At least 19 cases involving children abuse in China have been reported this year. So why do such cases happen frequently?
China National Radio reports that reasons cited include increased childcare needs as a result of the lifting the ban on having a second child that also triggered a lowering of the recruitment standard of kindergarten teachers.
Studies estimate that China will be lacking more than three million kindergarten teachers and nursery governesses by 2021, with 15 million new eligible children.
K618.cn, a younger generation-focused news service, said that in the previous mistreatment cases, people-in-charge, mostly directors of the kindergartens, were rarely given criminal sanctions and teachers were usually given administrative penalties like being fired.
"Child abuse is legally forbidden by Constitution, Criminal Law, Compulsory Education Law and Juvenile Protection Law ... but there is no 'child abuse crime'," said Tong Lihua, deputy to Beijing Municipal People's Congress and the director of Beijing Child Legal Aid and Research Center.
"Further efforts should also be made in the public service system to help the children and their parents," said Tong Xiaojun, dean of the Research Institute of Children and Adolescents at China Youth University for Political Sciences.