by Dr Rahim Said
In the 1960s, school discipline was swift, visible, and largely unquestioned. Ask any student from that era what happened when they stepped out of line, and you’ll likely hear stories involving thick rattan canes, dusty school assembly halls, and the phrase “Let this be a lesson to all.”
One former classmate, now 80, still remembers his brief moment of rebellion: he hit back at a PE teacher. The retaliation? Eight strokes of the cane—delivered in front of the entire student body. No police, no press, no public outrage.
The headmaster didn’t mince words. He simply declared, “Let that be a lesson to all,” and that was the end of it. We returned to class. Nobody cried foul. Not the parents, not the student.
Discipline was considered a personal matter between student and school, not one for lawyers and social welfare departments.
Fast forward to today, and the contrast couldn’t be starker.
A 14-year-old student has just pleaded guilty in a Kajang Magistrate’s Court for punching a 29-year-old teacher. The whole episode, caught on a 38-second viral video, has sparked public debate.
The boy is accused of intentionally causing hurt to the teacher after being scolded for skipping a PE class.
Now, instead of a disciplinary session in the principal’s office, the boy faces sentencing under Section 323 of the Penal Code. A character report will be submitted. Bail was set. Lawyers were involved. Of course, social media had its field day.
We now live in an era where a breakdown in classroom discipline escalates into a matter for the police, the judiciary, and the Ministry of Education.
Public opinion swings from outrage to sympathy. Was it the student’s broken family? The teacher’s tone? The system’s failure? Everyone has a theory, and everyone has a smartphone.
But somewhere in this pendulum swing—from overzealous canings of yesteryear to legal theatre of the present—we’ve lost sight of what matters most: the classroom must remain a safe place for both students and teachers.
The goal of discipline is not to shame, injure, or imprison. It is to teach. It is to correct. It is to build a culture of mutual respect. We cannot bring back the cane without due care, nor can we allow our schools to become battlegrounds where teachers fear reprimanding and students fear each other.
Yes, children today have more rights and rightly so. But let’s not forget that rights come with responsibilities, including the basic respect owed to those who guide them every school day.
At the same time, teachers need training and support systems to manage behavioural issues in a more compassionate but firm manner. Not every outburst should land in court, but neither should any act of violence be swept under the carpet.
We owe it to our children—not just to keep them out of jail, but to help them grow up in environments where structure, empathy, and discipline coexist.
A classroom should never be a place where a teacher risks being assaulted for doing their job. Nor should it be a courtroom proxy where troubled teens are labelled beyond repair.
Our children deserve better. They deserve schools where learning happens in safety, where wrongs are corrected with wisdom, and where authority is earned—and respected—not feared or challenged with fists. Only then can we truly say our education system is doing its job.
Maybe, the lesson today shouldn’t be delivered with a cane or a court order—but with a collective will to make schools safe again.
(The views expressed here are entirely those of the writer)
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