'Principal must take responsibility for student beating'

Expressing his concern about the incident where a prefect of a leading school in Kandy had allegedly beaten up and injured a grade six student of the same school during school’s morning assembly, State Minister of Education V. Radhakrishnan said yesterday the principal of the school must take responsibility for its occurrence.

In a similar incident seven Cadet Corps of the same school had been held for assaulting another student inhumanely.

“Let alone students, even school teachers cannot and are not supposed to batter children in this fashion. If a child had committed an act that is in violation of school discipline, there are effective ways to deal with such situations,” the State Minister said.

“The school prefects cannot use physical force on other students, but they can confront law-breaking students. They are counted on to enforce school regulations and to report infractions to teachers or school administrators,” he stressed.

“That is why we are having a teacher in charge of school discipline in schools. They should be able to reduce discipline problems of students in schools. They may seek the assistance of school principals or parents if need be,” he explained.

“Creating a positive school culture is the role of a principal. The prefects of schools going about beating up other students during school assembly is not going to help because it is not going to engage the students or the learning environment,” he added.

Asked if it was alright in that sense that school prefects stop those students whose dress code or hair in violation of school discipline, the minister said, “It is alright as far as the prefects do it honorably and set an example. They cannot exercise cruelty or assault students on any account.”

On being pointed out that in some schools, the prefects are cutting the over grown hair of students with a blade as they enter the school, the minister said that they may be warned against breaking the school discipline code and be brought to notice of the teacher in charge of school discipline.

“Should any punishment be meted out, a due process must be followed,” he added.

Kandy Police said the matter came to a close yesterday with the parents of the two students reaching a peaceful settlement at the police station.