An elementary school teacher in northern Vietnam has been fired for coercing a disruptive student to consume dirty water in class in earlier this year, which caused shock amongst many people.  

Education officials in Hai Phong City, where the teacher worked, decided on Thursday to terminate the contract they signed with the teacher for the inappropriate punishment she gave.

Ph. Ph. A., a third grader at An Dong Elementary School, had to drink water wringed from a board-cleaning cloth in February as a punitive requirement by her teacher, Nguyen Thi Minh Huong, who has worked there for a short time.

The student noisily talked during a class session, a classmate said.

“My granddaughter was so scared that she didn’t tell the family what had happened at all,” said Pham Khac Thao, the child’s grandfather.

The incident came to light on April 3, when one of her classmates told him, he added.

Huong visited the student’s house after receiving a phone call from the grandfather demanding an apology.

The high-profile case caused the Ministry of Education and Training to issue an order to the school, pressing for a strict penalty for “the serious violation of the teaching profession code of conduct.”

The school management plans to organize extracurricular activities and figure out ways to assuage the child’s worry, in an effort to integrate her back with peers, according to Dang Tang Thong, an education official in Hai Phong.

“We’ve still felt baffled and irate at Huong’s way of teaching. As an urgent remedy, we’ll correct the ways of teaching in the entire school and bring the educational climate here to normal as soon as possible,” said Pham Thi Bich Lien, the school’s principal.

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