China's new guidelines give teachers right to 'discipline' students

China issued a set of guidelines to make the teaching profession "one of the most respected and admirable occupations in China" by 2035. The guidelines, released earlier this week by the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee and the State Council, China’s cabinet, focus on protecting their rights and supporting them to “actively discipline students".

The new rules also rule in zero tolerance for teachers who commit malpractice and related violations. There is provision for strict enforcement of discipline as well as legal consequences for offenders.

According to official Chinese figures, there are 18.9 million teachers in the country, which top leader Xi Jinping-led system China describes as the “largest-scale teaching system in the world”.

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The Chinese education system has been slammed for purportedly disciplining students with measures such as after-class detention and being required to stand during class.

Cindy Wang, who teaches at a junior school in Hubei province, central China, told the South China Morning Post, teachers were concerned that if anything happened, they would be portrayed in a bad light.

“It’s quite difficult to find the appropriate level of punishment. If it’s too light, it won’t work, if it’s heavy, it might hurt the students physically or mentally,” she told the South China Morning Post.

"It doesn’t matter whether the teacher had good reasons to discipline the student, as long as others complained about them, there’s a problem," Xiong Bingqi, director of the Beijing-based 21st Century Education Research Institute, wrote in an article published by The Beijing News.

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Under this approach, "teachers will only turn a blind eye when students break rules," Xiong said.

"Often, our superiors come to the school for open classes and other inspections, so we have to prepare a lot of documents, which even takes up our time [for] teaching and grading," Wang said.

"Once the officials leave, all these materials go into the trash can."

(With inputs from agencies)