A mother, Elizabeth Ebere, has accused a teacher at the Adeoye International School, Iyana-Iyesi, in the Ota area of Ogun State, of assaulting her daughter, Chizaram, aka Zara.
Ebere said the beating her daughter received from the teacher, identified only as Mrs Taiwo, made the three-year-old fall sick.
She said that the teacher allegedly flogged her daughter several times in the leg for refusing to write in school.
According to her, efforts to get the attention of the school management to attend to the matter proved abortive till she made a post about the incident on her Facebook page.
She said, “I was coming back from the hospital on October 28 when the teacher called me, but I did not pick, so she sent a message to me on Whatsapp that Zara did not want to write so she flogged her and I said Okay, thinking she flogged her on the palm.
“When my daughter came back from home, she said her teacher flogged her and she showed me her legs. I was shocked to see the marks on her legs. I wondered why she would flog a child that writes on a normal day just because she decided not to write that day.”
The 23-year-old said her family called the school to report the incident, adding that the headmistress insisted that it was not the culture of the school to beat pupils.
She said her husband, who was livid at the sight of the bruises on the child, called the teacher and the headmistress, but they did not take their calls.
Elizabeth said, “My daughter did not go to school the following day because she was running a temperature and we kept calling the school but they didn’t pick and the school did not bother to check up on her.
“On Monday, my daughter went to the school and a picture was sent to the PTA Whatsapp group showing how the school jam-packed children because they were doing Colour Day. My daughter, who was already sick from the beating she received from the teacher, was among them. So, I commented that they should try to follow the COVID-19 rules, but nobody replied me.
“Last Friday, my daughter started running a temperature again and I gave her first aid treatment and took her to a hospital on Saturday. The doctor said she had a viral infection, so I went to the school Whatsapp platform and told them that my child was sick, but they practically ignored me and was attending to other matters on the group.
“When I saw that the school was not responding to any of my messages, on Sunday morning, I told them I was going to handle it my way and I left the Whatsapp platform and made a post about the incident on my Facebook page.”
She noted that after the post, the school contacted her and sought details of the incident, promising to get back to her.
