The Control Yuan was yesterday urged to investigate Taipei Minquan Junior High School and the Taipei Department of Education after teachers at the school were accused of bullying a pupil with Tourette syndrome who committed suicide in December last year.
The parents of the seventh-grader, surnamed Wang (王), and the Humanistic Education Foundation yesterday told a news conference that the education department had turned a blind eye to the bullying, incidents of which they had only learned about from other students after he jumped to his death from his family’s apartment building.
For the three months prior to his death on Dec. 7, when her son was at school he was forced to stay in the student affairs office, was barely allowed to attend classes, was repeatedly shouted at by teachers, was made to stand behind a door while a teacher violently kicked it, and was forced to stay after school to copy test papers almost every day, Mrs Wang said.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
The father said the school had always known his son had Tourette syndrome and difficulty focusing, but instead of treating him with patience and understanding, the teachers had “bullied and tortured” him.
His son had been made to stay at the student affairs office to study on his own since Oct. 24 as a punishment for a conflict he had with another student, the father said.
During that time, a teacher surnamed Yang (楊) would repeatedly yell at him, and one time made him stand in a small gap between an open door and a wall as he kicked at the door, Mrs Wang said.
“My child was not the only one to have been treated in such a way — what you can almost call torture. The teacher [Yang] once tried to stuff another student into a locker, but gave up because he would not fit,” Mr Wang said.
Another teacher, surnamed Shih (施), made the boy copy every test question that he got wrong and redo his test until he scored 60, and when he do so, the goal was raised to 80; this had led to her son staying after school for one to two hours almost every day, Mrs Wang said.
The department’s report on the boy’s suicide, issued on Aug. 22, cited a lack of communication between the parents and school, but did not address any other mistakes or possible failures on the school’s part.
The Wangs and the foundation urged the Control Yuan to investigate the school principal and certain teachers for mistreating the youngster and demanded that it mete out corrective measures to the department for dereliction of duty.
The department yesterday said it had not be derelict, noting it had formed an investigation team on Dec. 7, which visited the school to meet with its principal, teachers and staff on Dec. 15.
The team had asked for several parents’ permission to interview their children, but none consented, the department said.
The school has made the necessary personnel adjustments and Yang no longer works at the school, the department said.
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