Authorities in the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang confirmed on Monday night they temporarily suspended the operation of Elm School private preschool to verify suspicions of child abuse. 

Earlier on the same day, the education administration division of Da Nang’s Cam Le District and the local police worked with representatives of Elm School, which was established in April under an operation license granted by authorities in Hoa Xuan Ward.

The school currently hosts 30 children.

At noon on Monday, the Facebook page of Elm School shared an apology by P.T.G., a founder and a teacher of the school.

In the apology, G. admitted to pushing, hitting, shoving, slapping, lifting, and throwing students in a toddler class, dragging them on the floor, threatening, knocking on their knees with a spoon, rough feeding, feeding the children back the food that had been spit out, starving the children, and leaving them thirsty and hot.

G. pledged to withdraw from her role at Elm School, officially quit the early education career, and asked for forgiveness.

Previously, parents of Elm School’s students queried its founders during their meeting on September 29 about the suspicion that their children were not given food and water at the school.

“My child is hungry to the extent that his hands shake every time he returns home from school,” a parent of a student named F. stated. “F. carried a bowl around the class begging teachers for food, but none of them gave him any.”

“I wonder what the teachers did to the children in the toilet that they became afraid of bathing and spraying water,” a parent of a student named S. questioned.

The meeting minutes showed that the parents demanded Elm School to refund all the fees they had paid and requested the school to stop admitting new students to better take care of the registered ones.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!