Its deputy commissioner, Roslan Wahab, made the apology at a press conference after a 90-minute meeting with pupils and staff of the school Wednesday.
He admitted it was a mistake, according to a report in the Malay Mail.
Roslan said the pupils should not have been forced to enter the pit with a blood python in by his staff at a motivational camp here last Saturday.
“This was something that wasn’t supposed to take place and we are sorry for what happened,” he was quoted as saying by the Malay Mail.
“It may have happened because of overzealous personnel. The personnel involved have also expressed their regret over what happened.”
Four coaches and six assistants involved in the motivation programme have since been suspended pending an internal investigation.
The training module has also been suspended indefinitely. Twenty-three schools with 1,622 students had undergone the training since 2012.
“We have carried out these programmes for decades and this is the first time this has happened. But we admit a mistake was made,” Roslan said.
“It was something that shouldn’t have happened and we want to ensure it does not happen again.”
According to the Malay Mail report Roslan said the school had called in counsellors to speak to the affected pupils.
Earlier yesterday, Perak Civil Defence Force Director Col Mohd Noor Hassan Ashari Sulaiman clarified that contrary to his statement earlier, there was only one blood python, not two.
“There was only one which was fished out and thrown back,” he said.
In Kuala Lumpur, Civil Defence Force Deputy Director-General of Operations Selamat Dahalan said the incident was an isolated one.
“The hosing with water is included in the module’s SOP but we do not condone the use of live animals at any time even if it’s for performance purposes,” the Malay Mail quoted him as saying.
Selamat said the recording that went viral was actually meant to be shown after the participants completed the module.
“We do not know how it went viral. It was for a montage reel to be shown at the end of the programme,” he said.