A male teacher who was accused yesterday of molesting 11 secondary school girls will be transferred to a new school by the district education department.
District education officer, Ismail Musa, told Komunitikini that the teacher’s duties at SMK Pandan Mewah have ceased effective today.
However, the teacher will still be staying in the school hostel until the department determines his new posting.
The decision was made this morning after a meeting between Ismail, the school management, the parent-teacher association, the girls and their parents, and Teratai assemblyperson Jenice Lee
Lee claimed that the school sought to reconcile the girls and their parents with the teacher, but she insisted that the teacher “be out of the school immediately”.
She claimed the teacher had explained his touching the girls’ chests and cleavages as “merely to check their heart beats”.
“His statement immediately made the girls cry and made their parents very angry,” Lee said, adding that teacher had not touched the boys in the same way as he did the girls.
According to the 11 girls, they were caught by the teacher for skipping morning assembly last week, together with two boys.
The girls accused the teacher of touching them on their chest, back and cleavage, on the pretext of checking their pulses before he caned them.
The girls also claimed they were were given a pat on other parts of their bodies by the teacher, who said he wanted to check if they had any mobile phone on them.
The teacher then allegedly snapped some photos of the girls, and the boys were caned on their buttocks.
The parents of the girls were shocked when they were told about the incident and had sought an explanation from the school management last Friday but their attempts were futile.
They were later accompanied by Lee’s aide to lodge a police report on the same day.
Meanwhile, Lee said the parents would be proceeding to seek justice for the girls in spite the outcome of today’s meeting.
“They are very upset. Schools are supposed to be a sacred place,” she said.
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