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By LIEW HANQING
HE LIKED a girl in his class but when she declined to go out on a date with him, he dated her best friend.
Stories of puppy love are not uncommon in school.
But this one involved a male teacher who had a habit of taking his female students out on dates.
The girls were 16 and though all sides deny there was physical intimacy, the text messages this teacher sent to a student proved too racy for her brother.
The adult brother read the text messages on her hand phone and marched to her school, located in the north.
The school principal immediately investigated the matter and alerted the Ministry of Education (MOE). But before any action could be taken, the teacher quit.
The principal said the science teacher had been asked to resign.
It turned out the 29-year-old teacher had done the same thing when he taught in a different school.
He had received a warning in 2007 and was later transferred to this secondary school.
Was it just a case of a teacher being too friendly? His students were fond of posting comments on his blog, which The New Paper on Sunday found.
On it, a student described the man as 'the horniest teacher' who 'kept talking dirty to us'.
The slim-built man, who was transferred to the school last year, got romantically involved with one of his Sec 4 students shortly after he joined the school.
After that relationship soured, he got into a relationship with yet another Sec 4 student. He had been transferred from the secondary school where he taught earlier after being involved in an inappropriate relationship with a student there.
The New Paper on Sunday learnt that the latest incident came to light after one of the girls' brothers chanced upon SMSes from the teacher to his sister.
He then confronted the school authorities with several SMS exchanges between the two.
The principal of the teacher's present school told us on Tuesday that an investigation was carried out immediately after the school learnt of the allegations.
'The teacher and student claimed there was no inappropriate physical contact between them,' the principal said.
She said the school then reported the incident to MOE and warned the teacher to stop all contact with the students.
The teacher later tendered his resignation. It's unclear exactly when he quit.
Said the principal: 'The school has reminded teachers that they must always manage their interactions with students in a professional manner.'
In the course of his year-long stint at the school, the teacher took two of his students out one-on-one, treated them to food and chatted with them online.
They would often chat about more than just schoolwork.
The teacher justified the meetings, claiming it was his way of building rapport with the students.
Said the principal: 'He is very close to his students, even the male students.
'We told him that though he can be a friend to his students, he must still recognise that he is an adult and he cannot be a regular friend to his students.' The New Paper found the teacher's blog, which he set up in February last year.
On the site, he posted pictures of himself with students in school, and while on several outings with them.
He also posted several self-taken pictures of himself in front of a mirror.
Posts messages for students
Occasionally, he posted messages to his students encouraging them to study hard and to keep up their good work.
In one entry, written in September last year, he wrote: 'My dearest class, I want you to know that I'm always behind you guys. You are seriously the best! 'I know you can do it, you know you can do it, so do it!'
In his most recent entry, on 19 Nov, the teacher wrote that he had decided to put up a message board on his site.
He wrote: 'Take note if you are unhappy with me. You can just close the browser. No need to spam. Because I will ban you, find out who you are, and then you will know.'
Several of the teacher's students have already posted messages supporting him.
One wrote: 'Don't worry... hope (the principal) lets you stay as our form teacher.'
Blog entries written by the teacher's students seem to suggest that he was well-liked, though his behaviour may have been questionable.
Wrote one student: '...class today was by far the best class. I didn't feel like sleeping or anything.'
The principal of the school said she had met the teacher and explained to him that there were certain boundaries he had to observe and that his behaviour towards his students had been inappropriate.
She said: 'The teacher reflected on what was said during the meeting and has decided to tender his resignation.'
An MOE spokesman told The New Paper that disciplinary action had been taken against the teacher in 2007.
A warning letter was issued to him at that time for initiating dates with a student which constitutes inappropriate behaviour for a teacher.
The recent incident was investigated by the school and the ministry, the spokesman said, but the teacher tendered his resignation before formal disciplinary proceedings could betaken against him.
Said the spokesman: 'MOE expects our teachers to conduct themselves in a manner that upholds the high standing of the profession, both in a personal and professional capacity.
'Teachers are given clear guidelines as to what constitutes proper behaviour, including being professional in their interactions with students and maintaining propriety in the teacher-student relationship at all times.'
OTHER IMPROPER RELATIONSHIPS
In February, a married ex-teacher became the first woman jailed here for having sex with an underage boy.
The 32-year-old mother of two was sentenced to 10 months' jail for being intimate with the boy, then 15, a former pupil of the primary school where she taught.
She resigned after the illicit affair came to light in May last year.
She had tried to end the relationship but later went to the police complaining that the boy had threatened her.
In 2006, The New Paper reported that a 14-year-old student had been in an intimate relationship with a married teacher whose wife was pregnant.
The teacher, then 33, had been seeing the student for seven months. They held hands and kissed and she had allowed him to touch her inappropriately.
The affair came to light when the student was chatting with a cousin online.
The cousin, 25, probed her about the relationship when the girl said she had a boyfriend and eventually found out about the teacher. Family members then went to the school and confronted the teacher.
He subsequently left the school.
In 2006, a lecturer at a tertiary institution was asked to leave when it learnt she had an affair with a student.
After the affair soured, the student took to the Internet, posting sordid details of the affair on various online forums.
He also posted information like where she lived and parked her car.
The lecturer's husband later filed for a divorce, citing adultery and naming the student as a co-respondent.
The institution also went all the way to the High Court to seek an injunction to prohibit the student from talking about the affair.
This article was first published in The New Paper.
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