Minister of Education: We have taken severe action against the offending teacher in Aligudarz

The Minister of Education of Iran apologized for the physical punishment of several students in Aligudarz County, Lorestan Province, by their teacher and stated that the Administrative Violations Department of the Ministry of Education has taken "severe" action against this teacher. According to ILNA, Ali Asghar Fani emphasized on Tuesday, December 24, that he was "affected" by seeing the video of this incident. He expressed hope that the "process" of physical punishment of students in schools would "decrease and reach zero." In recent days, a video of the physical punishment of several students from the Bahonar Vocational Technical School in Aligudarz has been circulated on social media and websites. Meanwhile, Reza Mohammadi, the head of the Education Department of Aligudarz, reported that the offending teacher had expressed "regret and remorse" and that the students and their families had been "consoled." Despite the prohibition of physical punishment of children in Iranian schools, there have been previous reports of serious consequences for several children due to physical punishment. Last year, Iranian media reported that a 15-year-old high school student in District 9 of Tehran was hospitalized due to "severe physical punishment." Earlier, the Etemad newspaper had reported that a 9-year-old student in Mirjaveh in Sistan and Baluchestan Province had been hospitalized "for the umpteenth time" due to the lashings from his teacher. News sites also reported last year that a teacher in Pakdasht forced four Afghan students to "put their hands in a toilet bowl." Rahim Alishpour, the prosecutor of Pakdasht, also reported in July of this year that the case of this teacher had been sent to court. Alongside reports of physical punishment of students, there have also been reports of attacks by students or their parents on teachers. In the latest case, according to reports, on Sunday, December 8, three parents and relatives of one of the students attacked the teachers of the primary school in the village of "Sheikh Aboud" in Sepidan County, Fars Province, injuring one teacher. On December 1, 2014, Mohsen Khoshkhashi, a physics teacher at Hafeziyeh High School in Borujerd, was killed by a "knife blow" from a student. In this context, the Iranian Ministry of Education stated that the laws prohibiting physical punishment are not ambiguous. The death of the physics teacher in Borujerd was due to knife blows from a student.