The Education Ministry yesterday vowed to take legal action against the management of the privately run Sarasas Witaed Ratchaphruek School after staff members were caught on camera physically abusing kindergarten children.
Deputy Education Minister Kanokwan Vilawan said Khurusapha, an agency that sets and monitors professional teaching standards, would lodge a complaint against the school executives for hiring unqualified people as teachers.
Ms Kanokwan said the ministry would examine whether all the schools teachers are qualified and have teaching permits and promised to look into every issue raised by concerned parents.
The Office of the Private Education Commission (Opec) recently set up a special committee to investigate all 42 Sarasas schools for student abuse following an incident at Sarasas Witaed Ratchaphruek School in Nonthaburi which provoked outrage among parents and the public.
Last week, several videos were widely shared online in which a teacher was seen on several occasions assaulting Kindergarten 1 pupils at the school. One clip, from closed-circuit TV in the classroom, showed the teacher pushing a girl to the floor and pulling her hair in the presence of teaching assistants, who failed to intervene.
The school expressed regret over the incident and sacked Ornuma "Khru Jum" Plodprong, who it turned out was not a qualified teacher.
A Filipino teacher at the school was also caught abusing a student.
Ms Kanokwan yesterday observed a meeting between parents and school management to discuss the situation. Parents also submitted an 11-point proposal in which they called on the school to raise teaching standards, make improvements for their children's well-being and real-time access to classroom CCTV footage.
Opec secretary-general, Atthapol Truektrong, said yesterday that privately run schools would be required to produce the permits of their teachers within a week for examination.
"The 12-member panel will speed up the investigation into Sarasas Witaed Ratchaphruek School first and the school will face stiff penalties for the offences committed. All will be held responsible, be they teachers or the management, for child abuse," he said.