Teacher told to apologize for post that listed students' misbehavior

A high school in Hebi, Henan province, has asked the teacher responsible for senior class management to apologize to parents and students after a list of their misbehavior was published online, sparking heated debate over student privacy.

In a post published on the WeChat account of Hebi Senior School's Class of 2021 on Jan 27, the disciplinary violations of dozens of students from Jan 18 to 24 were listed in detail. The names and classes of the students involved were also identified.

While frequent violations included sleeping in class, talking with others, being late, playing with cellphones, eating and bringing snacks to class, it also listed combing hair, not sitting properly, not taking notes, going to the restroom during an exam, yawning and not entering "study mode".

The post has been deleted and the WeChat account has been closed.

Head teachers and a psychology teacher had communicated with all the students listed to alleviate possible mental side effects, the school said.

It also asked teachers to learn from the incident, improve management regulations and prevent such incidents from happening again.

School principal Feng Xiliang told Beijing News that while publishing the list had been meant to let senior students concentrate more on class learning, it was not the right approach.

The teacher involved, surnamed Yue, admitted to the newspaper that publishing the list online had violated the students' privacy.

Teachers were not monitoring students nonstop but kept records of students who were not efficiently learning in class, he said, adding that previous lists of violations had been shared among teachers and students and not published online.

The students had not been punished, he said, adding, "It's only a reminder, nothing more."

Separately, local education authorities have given a warning to a high school in Yuncheng, Shanxi province, after it persuaded three students to drop out after they screamed lines from the Japanese TV series Ultraman in their dormitory.

Hedong No 1 High School said in a notice that students should turn in others who had violated dormitory management rules and screamed at night and during the lunch break.

It had persuaded the three students to drop out and hoped others would learn from their misbehavior, the notice said.

The school had handled the incident in a simple and incorrect way and that showed the school's administration was outdated and people involved were incapable, Yuncheng's Yanhu district education and science bureau said on Tuesday.

The principal, a vice-principal and a director had been disciplined by the bureau and a deputy director in charge of school dormitories was removed from his post, the bureau said. The warnings to the three students have been revoked.