A small child, not much larger than a toddler, stands at the front of the classroom. The uniformed woman towering over the child quickly grabs its shoulder and slams its head against the wall.
It’s just the latest in a nauseating series of clips exposing grievous abuses at a well-known private school in Bangkok that’s become roiled in a child abuse scandal deepened by its owner’s defiance and refusal to acknowledge.
After a deputy prime minister this morning vowed to throw the book at those involved pending the outcome of a thorough criminal investigation of the Sarasas Witaed Ratchaphruek School, where a stream of leaked footage has exposed teachers abusing young children, the president of the Sarasas school chain said he was unconcerned.
“I’m not afraid if you shut my school,” Piboon Yongkamol, president of Sarasas schools, told a news program this morning. “I will sell the property and make even more profits.”
It was his latest in a series of brazen statements which have poured gas on the fire of a social issue that has upset many and called attention to the culture of abuse in Thai education – and those who enable it.
Piboon previously responded to cascading revelations of widespread abuse from parents by saying they wanted more money. Things nosedived yesterday after he said in news program interview that the school prioritized the tidiness and image of its teachers over their knowledge and attitude, noting that some were unlicensed. His admission that he used to teach without a license shocked the top education official and parents of abused children appearing on the program.
“The children’s caretakers should look clean, and every teacher must have their teeth cleaned,” he told Channel 3 viewers. “We look at their physical qualities first. They can’t have bad breath talking to children. As for the mind, kindergarten teachers definitely must be patient and love children.”
On Friday, CCTV clips spread of a teacher, later identified as Ornuma “Teacher Joom” Plodprong, abusing several children. They show her slapping a child on the head so hard he falls to the ground, pulling another’s hair and pinching a third kindergartener’s ear. Ornuma was employed to help care for the children and didn’t have a teaching license. That led to more clips coming out of her assaulting children and a wider examination of widespread physical punishment at Thai schools.
A number of teachers have controversially spoken up in defense of the abuse.
The latest clip circulating online today of the child’s head being slammed into a wall appeared to show a different woman perpetrating the abuse.
Ornuma was fired and charged with assaulting a child and violating the professional code. She was released on a THB60,000 bond yesterday.
