In the wake of the decision to suspend students who assaulted a classmate, educators say they are unsure about how to handle such serious situations.

 

The Tra Vinh provincial Education and Training Department and Ly Tu Trong Secondary School Management Board suspended for one week nine students who assaulted a classmate. 

Five others received a strong warning from the school board of management. One has been reprimanded for getting involved in the case. 

The Tra Vinh City People’s Committee has also released a decision on temporarily suspending four teachers at the school, including the headmaster and deputy headmaster, to clarify their responsibilities in the case.

Education experts warned that the punishment would not help settle the root of the problem. They said suspending students from school should be a last resort in serious cases.

Deputy Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Thi Nghia, during an interview with the local press, also said though the students committing mistakes should be punished, they need to be educated rather than suspended. 

Dr of Psychology Huynh Van Son said the suspension was not the best solution. 

The student, who was a victim of school violence, should receive an apology and support from school and classmates. 

The students committing the assault need to be taught that their behavior is condemnable and must not be repeated.

However, parents do not think the solutions suggested by the psychologist would help stop school violence.

“Reasoning and sanctioning are both the two necessary measures of education. Both schools and prisons are needed in society,” Hoang Hanh Hoa, a parent in Cau Giay district in Hanoi.

“Expulsion from school is a punishment method stipulated in the laws and school regulations. Students need to understand that they will be punished if they make mistakes,” she said.

Ly Tu Trong Secondary School’s students and teachers are experiencing tough days after the assault took place.

Nguyen Thi Nhu, a parent, said she has to bring her daughter, a sixth-grader, to school every day, though the school is 500 meters far away from her home, because she fears something bad may occur with the girl.

The grandmother of Tran Nguyen Binh T, one of the nine students, said the boy has left to live with his father (his parents are divorced), who travels everywhere to work for others. She doesn’t know when T would return.

Who is to blame for the rising school violence? Is the morality of young people degrading? Or do parents and schools neglect their task of teaching morality to students? To date, no proper solution has been found to deal with the school violence.

Thanh Mai