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By Veena Bharwani
THE 14-year-old schoolboy punched his female form teacher.
As if that was not enough, he punched the school's full-time adult male counsellor as well.
The incident happened on 16 Apr in a boys' school in the north.
Confirming the incident, the school's principal said the student has since been suspended.
A police spokesman said that they received a call informing them of an assault at the school at 2.30pm that day.
The student was later arrested for assault on a civil servant, he added.
The teacher and counsellor received outpatient treatment and returned to school the next day, said the principal.
'The school takes a serious view of the incident. The student is currently suspended from school. Police investigations are ongoing and the school will cooperate with the police in its investigations,' the principal added.
The school declined to provide further details.
The incident is not the first such attack to be reported recently.
Three days before this incident, The New Paper reported the case of a 16-year-old student who threw a chair at his vice-principal - in front of his classmates.
That incident was not reported to the police but the school, a co-educational institution in the east, took its own disciplinary action.
The two boys involved in these incidents have something in common - they both have emotional issues related to family or school.
Educators and counsellors The New Paper spoke to said schools are starting to do more to integrate students with such issues as well as those with different abilities and special needs.
However, until these incidents, both students apparently did not display any signs of violence.
A student from the 14-year-old boy's school claimed that the boy was well-behaved.
Said the student, who gave his name only as Tan: 'The boy is known to be mild mannered. I guess something must have happened to provoke him.'
Similarly, friends of the 16-year-old boy from the neighbourhood school also described him as a hardworking, well-behaved boy with no outward signs of any problems.
His school teacher also hinted at something that made him behave in such a manner.
He told The New Paper then that the student was not solely responsible for his behaviour.
Both the schools are also keen to protect these students, saying they are kids who need emotional support.
Educators and counsellors The New Paper spoke to said schools are equipping themselves better to help these kids.
Said Zhonghua Secondary principal Dolly Ong: 'Our society is becoming more inclusive as we admit more and more special-needs kids into mainstream schools.'
These include kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism.
She added: 'Right now, with the help of the Ministry of Education (MOE), schools are training more teachers to help kids with such issues.'
She said the approach is to train teachers to spot such behaviour before it hits 'a boiling point'.
She added that some 10 per cent of teachers in her school undergo special needs education training to specifically help these kids cope in school.
In all, an estimated 2,900 teachers will be trained by next year.
This is in addition to deploying counsellors and special-needs officers to schools.
MOE has done more for special-needs education lately, including posting special-needs officers to more than 100 mainstream schools to help children with autism or other special needs.
As of September last year, there are close to 600 allied educators co-teaching in secondary schools - about 90 education associates, 340 full-time school counsellors and about 160 special-needs officers.
MOE aims to have 2,800 of such co-educators by 2016.
By the end of this year, the number of schools with special needs officers will go up to 136, from 103 last year. One school counsellor said: 'MOE has been beefing up its staff to train teachers and employ more professionals to help these kids in mainstream schools.
'Of course, there are some problems and schools still haven't found the right formula to deal with these kids who need special help.'
He said that it's natural for there to be hiccups with some kids exhibiting violent behaviour in school.
He added: 'In time, we should see some improvement, as the special-needs support system in schools becomes more and more established.'
Additional reporting by Naveen Kanagalingam and Kay Tan, newsroom interns
OTHER CASES
24 APR THIS YEAR
Mr Mohamed Farook Ali Akbar, 35, allegedly threw his son Faheem Mohamed Farook, 7, to his death from the 24th storey of an HDB block. Mr Mohd Farook, who had taken leave from work that day to see his son's form teacher, also fell to his death. His son is understood to have been involved in a fight in school.
14 APR THIS YEAR
A fight broke out in an all-boys school between a student councillor and several other students after someone threw a bowl of hot seaweed soup at the councillor's back. The incident was believed to be the result of several skirmishes between the students and the councillor.
14 APR THIS YEAR
A bus driver was punched by a student of a neighbourhood school after he asked the student and his friend to dispose of a cup properly. After punching the bus driver, the student taunted the driver, asking him to give chase.
This article was first published in The New Paper.
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