A group of parents launched a petition against a Taipei City elementary school claiming that the school failed to respond appropriately when a student reportedly burnt another student with a pair of heated scissors.
Local media ran stories on Thursday saying that a fourth grader in Taipei Municipal Changan Elementary School branded his classmate with a pair of heated scissor during a science class this February. The reports said that the school staff did not notify the parents of the incident at the time, nor did they provide counseling to the injured student after the incident.
Students parents in the school were quoted by media reports as saying that the counseling procedure failed and that the campus is occupied by violence. Parents of the fourth graders launched a "zero violence on campus" petition recently, which gained a positive response in the school.
The principal of the school, Chang Su-hua, admitted on Thursday that there was inadequate reporting and crisis management of the incident, as even she was not immediately informed of the event. She told reporters that she has asked the administrative staff to enhance the reporting mechanism in the campus. She added that she will look into the case and properly punish those who were involved in the incident.
Yeh Hui-fang, the chief of the counseling office in the school who was accused by parents of failing to offer mental counseling to the injured student, was quoted by United Daily News as saying that unless a teacher fails to provide help for the students, the counseling office would not actively intervene in the matter. "Children have to learn to protect themselves," Yeh was quoted by the newspaper as saying; the statement reportedly enraged parents in the elementary school.
Students safety in Changan Elementary school triggered media attention when two boy students accidentally cut a female students finger with a utility knife last Tuesday. The tendon and nerves of the girls middle finger were severed, according to media reports, adding that the teacher at the scene did not even escort the girl to hospital, but let her go to the on-campus medical center by herself. Parents of the students in the school expressed deep distress over on the incident, and called for the school to face up to the seriousness of campus violence to avoid future incidents of children getting hurt.