A Citizen applied for the Ombudsman’s assistance in resolving the issue of regular violence against his son and classmates in a sixth grade in a school in one of the regions of Armenia.

Public Relations Department of the Human Rights Defender’s Office informs about this.

According to the citizen’s request, the parents had informed the school principal about the teacher’s behavior, who assured that he would study the problem and take action, but did not take any action.

Given the importance of the issue raised by the complaint, the competent representatives of the RA Human Rights Defender’s Office visited the school and discussed the issue with the school principal, the district administration representative, the 6th grade teacher, 28 pupils of the class, their parents, as well as the physical education teacher who allegedly applied violence.

All parents, who were present at the discussion, in the presence of the Ombudsman’s staff, claimed that a physical education teacher regularly applied force against children during physical education classes. The Ombudsman’s staff had a private conversation with 28 pupils of the sixth grade, during which the children reported cases of violence against them, as well as other incidents of violence by the teacher that parents were not aware of.

Related to the information provided in the letter by the pupils of the sixth grade and their parents, the Ombudsman’s Office initiated a discussion procedure on its own initiative, within which letters were sent to the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Regional Administration.

The Ombudsman requeted clarifications from the Regional Administration regarding the raised issue, and the letter sent to the RA Prosecutor General’s Office raised the issue of verifying the circumstances described in the procedure provided by the RA Criminal Procedure Code.

As a result of the discussion, by the order of the school principal, a disciplinary penalty was applied to the teacher of physical education for the teacher’s inappropriate behavior and transferred teaching of the 6th grade physical education classes to another teacher in order not to disrupt the normal course of classes. At the same time, the governor instructed the school principal to carry out appropriate explanatory work with the teachers’ staff of the school to apply exclusively pedagogical methods and to strictly maintain the normal course of educational process.