Students of the Denipitiya Maha Vidyalaya in Weligama and their parents staged a protest against the transfer of the lady teacher who cut the long pair of trousers of a student (she considered was too tight) as a punishment. More than 500 people participated.

The teacher concerned had been transferred with immediate effect to another school in the district after a preliminary inquiry into the complaint made against her.

A mother of one of the students G.D.Dayawathie pointed out that teachers should have the right to discipline students and to lead them along right paths. But, she said a teacher who took a keen interest in the education and discipline of the students had been transferred. “She had punished several other students for their misdeeds, but their parents never wanted to have the teacher transferred.

We consider punishment as a means to lead students properly. However, in this incident the relatives of the boy want to punish the teacher. We must protect teachers who are strict disciplinarians. We still remember how our teachers punished us,” she said.

Meanwhile the Principal of Denipitiya Maha Vidyalaya Nandasena Seneviratne said if teachers ignored the indiscipline of students the school would produce thieves and criminals, not good citizens.

He said the student concerned was not even wearing the school badge on the day of the incident. He pointed out that the incident resulted in the loss of a teacher for four hundred and fifty students.

However, the protestors dispersed after the Akuressa Zonal Director Dhammika Weerasekara and Denipitiya Divisional Director Ravindra Pathmasiri intervened and promised to resolve the issue within a week.

Source: Daily Mirror - Sri Lanka