A private international kindergarten in Yingge District, New Taipei City, Taiwan, has been fined after staff allegedly forced a child to remove their pants in class and clean the floor as punishment for spilling water.
The New Taipei City Education Bureau ruled that the actions of a teaching assistant and teacher seriously violated the child’s dignity and constituted improper discipline. The kindergarten was fined a total of NT$162,000 (about RM20,616) and its name has been publicly listed for monitoring.
According to authorities, the incident occurred after a child accidentally knocked over a cup of water. Instead of providing appropriate assistance, staff instructed the child to change their pants on their own in front of classmates and wipe the floor.
Following reports of the incident, the Education Bureau launched an investigation. During the probe, the kindergarten initially provided only partially enlarged and re-recorded CCTV footage in an apparent attempt to evade inspection and conceal the full incident.
However, after continued comparison of evidence provided by the bureau and parents, officials discovered that the kindergarten had deliberately withheld complete footage.
The Education Bureau said requiring young children to change clothes publicly and clean up exceeded reasonable standards of care and discipline. While the partial footage did not affect the determination of improper treatment, providing edited surveillance footage was deemed a serious violation in itself.
Authorities added that further monitoring measures would be imposed on the kindergarten in accordance with regulations.
