{
  "id": 16253525,
  "title": "Have our school discipline rules completely failed?",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/24/have-our-school-discipline-rules-completely-failed",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-10-24T00:30:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Free Malaysia Today",
    "slug": "free-malaysia-today-freemalays",
    "url": "https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2026/10/24/have-our-school-discipline-rules-completely-failed"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The Education (School Discipline) Regulations 1959 governs student discipline and corporal punishment in Malaysian public schools. Strict compliance with these regulations renders caning ineffective; only the head teacher or designated teacher may cane a student, not the class teacher; caning must occur in private; another teacher must witness the act; and documentation of the incident is mandatory. Speaking as the assistant headmaster of SK Tunku Abdul Halim in Alor Setar, Ravinder Singh observed the school's decline from a premier institution in the 1950s-1960s to a notorious example of poor discipline by 1990. Despite the regulations, Singh chose to restore order through judicious use of the cane, bypassing standard disciplinary rules. This approach succeeded in restoring order, and Singh now urges the Malaysian education ministry to reconsider dismissing traditional disciplining methods, such as the cane, as ineffective.",
  "summary": "As an assistant headmaster, I bypassed standard disciplinary regulations and witnessed a dramatic shift in my school’s trajectory with the use of the cane.",
  "key_points": [
    "Malaysian school discipline rules govern caning procedures.",
    "Only head teacher or designated teacher may cane students.",
    "Ravinder Singh restored order by using cane, advocating its reinstatement."
  ],
  "editors_take": "Bypassing strict regulatory protocols to restore order suggests that rigid administrative constraints on corporal punishment may undermine the practical effectiveness of traditional disciplinary methods in Malaysian public schools.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}