Some schoolchildren can be disruptive in class, and teachers are often frustrated by their inability to discipline them.

According to people who work in schools, a discipline master nowadays typically thinks twice before admonishing a pupil. He runs the risk of being set upon, outside the school perimeter, by a student who is a member of a street gang. His car may be scratched. He may even face the threat of a lawsuit from parents.

Teachers may be reluctant to discipline children, but that is one end of the spectrum. There are horror stories of children being beaten by their teachers, often in boarding schools. Their parents may not know about these sadistic teachers because the pupils will have been warned that a complaint would result in worse beatings.

Many questions remain unanswered in the recent case of the Tikam Baru Year Six student, Khairul Najwan Jamsari, who was late for school and said to have been severely punished by a teacher and a senior assistant.

On March 3, the 12-year-old cycled to school and arrived a few minutes late. Most children would get an oral warning and might have to go to detention class after several warnings. The parents would be notified by letter.

It is alleged that Khairul’s teacher, instead of issuing a warning, grabbed him by the neck, slammed him to the ground and stomped on his legs because he had been warned about the modifications to his bicycle, which didn’t adhere to school regulations.

The beatings were allegedly witnessed by other teachers, who apparently did nothing to prevent the assault.

Instead, they gave Khairul some food and told him to apologise to the teacher who beat him.

Khairul alleges that he was offered two ringgit after he apologised. This was to bribe him for his silence. But he told his mother about the incident, and his father, Jamsari Mohammad Hassan, lodged a police report. Reporters descended on their home and took photos of Khairul’s swollen face and the bruises on his neck and legs.

Jamsari claimed that the handlebars on his son’s bicycle had broken and was subsequently repaired by a welder.

Photos of the bicycle show a puzzling picture.

Normal bicycles have a stem for the handlebars. But on Khairul’s bicycle, the handlebars have been welded onto the front fork. So, instead of sitting upright, as on a normal bike, the bicyclist has to crouch down, as if he were on a racing bike. This presumably gives him more speed.

The fact is that boys will be boys, and an ingenious Khairul may have asked the welder to attach his handlebars on the forks to give him an advantage when racing.

Young men who like a thrill often soup up their motorbikes and cars for racing. This is illegal because the modifications are not always safe.

However, even if it’s true that Khairul had got his bicycle modified, the teacher had no justification to beat the living daylights out of him, assuming the reports are true. And if it was true that he tried to bribe the boy, he had committed another grave offence.

Before we criticise the teacher further, we must find out if young Khairul had ignored previous warnings about bike modifications. His bike, with the handlebars on the front forks, looks pretty unsafe.

The teacher may have tried to prevent him from suffering an accident on what he perceived to be an unsafe bike. However, he certainly did not have to beat him up.

Mariam Mokhtar is an FMT columnist

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