School says sorry for caning that left bruises

SUNGAI Petani's SMK Sin Min issued a statement to apologise to parents after two disciplinary teachers caned 30 students for flouting rules and bruised some students' buttocks, China Press reported.  

The bruising led to upset parents demanding an explanation from the school. 

The case, which was reported in Chinese newspapers, received public attention and many versions of the incident were circulated among the Chinese community, causing hurt to teachers and students, the paper quoted the statement. 

School authorities, after chairing a meeting with the school's board of directors and the parent-teacher association on Friday, said it regretted the incident and apologised to the parents. 

It also said caning students who had flouted disciplinary rules was one of the approaches used by the school for many years to discipline students. 

SMK Sin Min principal Lok Kin Hong said that to avoid a recurrence of such an incident, students who are to be caned more than once would not receive the canings on the same day. 

On Wednesday, 30 Form One students were caned for not submitting their homework, talking in the class and attending classes without textbooks. 

Three of them suffered bruises and their parents confronted the school over the incident. 

> In another report, the daily also reported that in Singapore a man left his home after discovering that two of his four children were fathered by the wife’s lover. 

After being married for 16 years, the couple had four children aged 16, 10, five and four. 

Late last year, an unknown man came to the house to look for the wife and the husband discovered that the wife had had an extra-marital affair. 

Through DNA tests, he found out that the two younger children were not his and left home in anger. 

The wife, identified only as Lim, appealed to the husband to return home and asked for forgiveness. 

Lim said she had made a mistake and the children should not be the ones made to suffer. 

After her husband left home, Lim’s lover had urged her to bring the two younger children to live with him but Lim said she declined. 

Lim said she could not let go of 16 years of marriage and urged her husband to give her another chance, the paper reported.