A Student from Islamshahr Hospitalized After 'Slap from Teacher'

The newspaper Shahrvand reported that a 14-year-old student in Islamshahr County suffered from 'seizures' after being slapped by a teacher and was hospitalized for three days. However, the school's principal denied this report. On Saturday, December 2, Shahrvand reported that last week, Amirhossein Jahadshiran, a 14-year-old student at the 'Mousa ibn Jafar' school in the Mohammadieh neighborhood of Islamshahr in Tehran province, 'suffered seizures and was taken to the hospital after being slapped by his teacher.' In this regard, Jabir Jahadshiran, the student's father, stated that he was contacted by the school last week, and when he arrived, an emergency nurse was examining his son and said he had 'suffered seizures.' According to Mr. Jahadshiran, his son initially told him he had fallen, but his classmates informed him that the teacher had slapped his son. He added that his son was hospitalized for three days and 'now sees blurry and has constant headaches.' Mr. Jahadshiran also mentioned that the principal and teacher intended to 'cover up' the incident of his son being beaten, but he filed a complaint with the local education department. Nevertheless, Rabie Mohammadi, the principal of the school, claimed that 'this student had a pre-existing condition.' According to Mr. Mohammadi, the education department's evaluation section is investigating this matter, and after the student's father filed a complaint with the police, the accused teacher also provided 'explanations' at the police station. Last year, numerous reports about corporal punishment of students in Iranian schools were published. However, Rahim Mirshahvold, the director general of performance evaluation and complaint response at the Ministry of Education, announced that the number of complaints regarding corporal punishment of students decreased to 349 last year. According to this report, this figure was 675 in 2015 and 1,249 in 2014. Meanwhile, according to Mr. Mirshahvold, out of a total of 2,138 complaints filed regarding corporal punishment of students over the past three years, 1,526 cases, or 65%, were 'valid,' while about 747 cases were 'unjustified and unproven.' Nevertheless, the total number of complaints that this education official separately reported regarding corporal punishment of students in the past three years amounts to 2,273. Since the beginning of the fall season and the reopening of schools, reports of corporal punishment of students have also emerged. For instance, Abdolamir Khanifar, the head of education in Shush city in Khuzestan province, confirmed in an interview with ISNA news agency that on Saturday, October 22, a sixth-grade student suffered a ruptured eardrum due to punishment by a teacher. In November, Iranian media reported that the principal of the primary school in the village of 'Sarsamad Shamil' in Bandar Abbas 'caused three teeth to fall out and two teeth to loosen by kicking a student in the face,' and afterward 'sent the injured student back to class in that condition and kept him there until the end of the school day.' After these reports were published, the education department of Bandar Abbas announced that 'the appointment of the negligent principal was revoked, and his case was sent to the administrative violations committee for investigation.' In November of this year, reports were also published regarding the punishment of two students in Bojnurd in North Khorasan and in Khorramabad in Lorestan province.