Education Ministry to conduct in-depth investigations into allegations of rape jokes by teachers

KUALA LUMPUR (Bernama): The Education Ministry (MOE) is conducting an in-depth investigation into the allegations of a female student that went viral on social media claiming that her school teacher had made rape jokes during class.

Education Minister Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin (pic) said MOE took the matter seriously and would not tolerate it if the incident really happened.

"This has become a police case, but we are also investigating if it really happened and if there is a case, strict and appropriate action will be taken," he said at a special press conference on the Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) and Form 3 Assessment (PT3) here Wednesday (April 28).

He was commenting on the issue of a teenage female student who, through TikTok, had alleged that a male teacher made rape jokes in class while discussing the issue of sexual harassment during the physical education and health subject at her school.

Meanwhile on Covid-19 clusters involving the education sector, Radzi said he had asked the Health Ministry to place education clusters related to the MOE's operations separately as currently Covid-19 cases that had been detected in all institutes of higher learning, state government schools, private schools, maahad tahfiz and others were classified under the education cluster.

"This is to enable the community to get a clearer picture on what is really happening in the context of education. If we put all the education clusters under one umbrella, it looks as if everything is related to the schools," he said.

Asked about the status of the donation of laptops under the Smart Fund in Budget 2021 to facilitate the home-based teaching and learning (PdPR) sessions, Radzi said that the donation process has begun and so far more than 13,000 units have been distributed to eligible students.

On the grievances of some parents on why the school holidays had not started earlier, Radzi said MOE would continue to follow the existing school calendar.

"We have more than five million students, 500,000 teachers, who have their own families so it's a big ecosystem - that's why we try to maintain the school calendar and find the best approach," he said.

Earlier, the MOE announced that home-based learning sessions after the Hari Raya Aidilfitri holiday will continue with PdPR for two weeks to replace the face-to-face sessions at school. - Bernama