Dubai: Another video of a teacher hitting a student in class has prompted the Ministry of Education to announce on Monday the launch of a hotline for students to directly contact the ministry.
For the third time in a week, a video showing a teacher hitting a student has emerged on social media.
The latest video, which seems to be recorded by a student in class, shows a teacher in a public school classroom hitting a student six times in the head using all his force.
Five days ago, a video emerged on social media showing another teacher in an Ajman public school hitting a student repeatedly, which prompted the Ministry of Education to suspend the teacher and investigate the matter.
This video was followed two days later with another showing a laboratory assistant hitting a student in a school in Al Ain, prompting the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) to terminate his services.
Minister of Education Hussain Al Hammadi said the hotline will be supervised by experts and will allow students to contact the ministry regarding any case that might set back their educational journey or hamper their physical and physiological well-being.
The minister said the hotline will help the ministry to respond quickly to any complaint and take the needed action promptly.
At the same time, the hotline will also prevent students from using wrong methods to report an incident, such as taking a video and putting it on social media, which violates people’s privacy, he said.
The latest video of the teacher hitting the student went viral on social media and became a trending topic in the UAE on Twitter with the hashtag Teacher_hitting_student (in Arabic).
Twitter comments on the topic showed mixed reactions, with some residents calling on authorities to take action against the teacher, while others asked people not to judge quickly as the student’s bad behavior might have provoked the teacher.
“It’s true that the teacher’s actions are wrong as he wasn’t able to control his temper but the student could have provoked him, so we shouldn’t judge before knowing what the full story is,” said user @shoq115.
User @mmmt76 disagreed, saying: “No matter how bad the student provoked the teacher, the student came to learn discipline before education and the teacher is the student’s role model.”
