Pencil Embedded in Head of Kerman Student During Physical Punishment by Teacher

News sources in Iran have reported that during the punishment of a third-grade student at the 'Shahid Salemi' school in 'Rudbar-e Jonubi' county of Kerman province by his teacher, a pencil became embedded in the student's head. According to ILNA news agency, on Saturday, the teacher intended to punish the student, who, out of fear, placed his hand on his head, and when the teacher's hand struck the student's hand, the pencil the student was holding went into his head. According to Young Journalists Club, affiliated with IRIB, the teacher stated, 'I intended to punish the student, but I did not know that my strike would cause the pencil he was holding behind his head to go into his head.' In this regard, Omid Salajegheh, the public relations manager of the Kerman Education Department, stated on Sunday, February 12, that the pencil was removed from the student's head at a medical center and that he is now well. He announced that this teacher has been referred to the committee for handling educational violations and will face consequences. In recent months, the use of physical punishment by some teachers has made headlines, including reports in October about students being 'whipped' at the 'Makhtarabad' school in Rudbar-e Jonubi due to their inability to pay a 30,000 Toman fee. However, the Kerman Education Department deemed these reports 'false, fabricated, and malicious.' In early February, images of the punishment of a Qayeni student circulated on social media, prompting Davood Mohammadi, the deputy head of the Education Commission in Parliament, to announce that an investigation would be conducted. In recent months, there have also been reports of physical punishment of students in a vocational school in Shiraz, a school in District 9 of Tehran, a school in the 'Bampour' region of Sistan and Baluchestan province, and a school in the 'Kalaleh' region of Golestan province. In this context, Mohammad Mahdi Zahedi, a representative from Kerman and head of the Education and Research Commission in Parliament, announced on Saturday, October 16, that representatives would soon be dispatched to Kerman, Sistan and Baluchestan, and Golestan provinces to investigate these reports, and if violations are found, teachers will be referred to judicial authorities for prosecution. Regarding the results of these investigations, Mir Hossein Mirzadeh, spokesperson for the Education Commission in Parliament, stated on November 24 that the committee handling violations of education staff in these three provinces is expected to 'follow up on this matter urgently and issue rulings for the offenders.' According to Rahim Mirshahvold, the director of performance evaluation and complaint response at the Ministry of Education, in the past two years, 1,924 complaints regarding physical punishment of students in schools have been registered, of which 1,274 complaints were 'valid.' In this context, a government official stated that 50,000 complaints are registered annually in education. The punishment of the Qayeni student has drawn the attention of the Education Commission in Parliament, and the Education Department in Laristan is pursuing a report of a student being beaten. The introduction of the 'offending teacher in the Shiraz physical punishment case' to the administrative violations committee has also been reported. The director of education in Khodabandeh rejected reports of the beating of a rural student.