Teacher demoted after verbally abusing students for not sending her presents

Education authorities in Shuozhou, Shanxi province, have stripped the teaching credentials of a local primary schoolteacher after an online video showed she verbally abused students for not sending her gifts.

The teacher, surnamed Wang, scolded Grade 6 students at the Shuocheng District No 6 Primary School during their class graduation ceremony, the Shuozhou education bureau said in a statement on Sunday.

Wang has been demoted and is now receiving the most junior level salary possible. She is also barred from working in the education system, the statement said.

In addition, the principal and three deputy principals were removed from their posts, and one deputy director of the Shuocheng education bureau received an administrative warning, as a result of the incident, it said.

According to a viral video on social media platform Sina Weibo, Wang lashed out at one of the students who had sent a bunch of flowers to the head teacher but not her.

She threw the flowers at the student and asked the entire class how they would feel if they were the teacher who did not receive the flowers.

Wang asked the students to stand up and said it was the last lesson she wanted to teach them－striking back when others bully you.

She also spit at the student who sent the flowers and criticized her parents for being ungrateful.

"You are so disgusting. You will never be successful in your studies, I guarantee you," she told the student.

The teacher who received the flowers made an effort to calm Wang down.

The school principal told news website ifeng.com that Wang scolded the students because she felt she was not appreciated for her work.

The incident has drawn much criticism from netizens, with many questioning how she could become a teacher.

"You should know by now why no one sends you flowers," one person commented.

"It's good that students can film such incidents and publicize their teachers' behavior. Otherwise, such incidents would not have been exposed," another wrote.

Any teacher caught abusing, molesting or sexually harassing students will be banned from teaching at any school, the Ministry of Education said in four guidelines regulating teachers' work ethics in 2018.

The guidelines call for the teaching credentials, academic titles and honors of such teachers to be revoked, and no school will be allowed to hire them again.

Teaching ethics are an indispensable part of all teachers' evaluation for promotion or getting awards, and teachers who violate those ethics will not be eligible for promotion or higher academic titles, the ministry said.

Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, said as students are in a disadvantageous position, incidents of teachers abusing students are not rare in the country.

Students are often afraid to report their teachers, and parents sometimes also avoid confrontations with teachers because they fear retaliation, he said.

"Schools and education authorities must constantly remind teachers about the importance of teaching ethics and hold violators accountable to reduce such incidents," he added.