Discipline rules to improve education quality

Editor's note: A growing number of teachers hesitate to discipline students for bad behavior in the classroom, fearing it could be construed as physical abuse. In the education guidelines it issued on July 9, the State Council, China's Cabinet, said detailed regulations would be worked out to ensure teachers can discipline disobedient, unruly students. Two experts share their views on the issue with China Daily's Yao Yuxin. Excerpts follow:

Chastise students to make them better human beings

After officials in a middle school in Shangluo, Shaanxi province, failed to take any action against a mathematics teacher despite a 13-year-old girl presenting a 20-hour recording of the verbal abuse she was subjected to by the teacher, the district education bureau launched an investigation, following which it fired the teacher.