Owner of tuition centre strikes girl with pen in video, says she had parents' approval
A video showing a woman hitting and berating a girl at a Vietnamese tuition centre for English in Toa Payoh has raised concern among netizens recently.
The centre goes by Ling English Class and ALT - No 1 Ôn luyện Trường Công lập Singapore dành cho học sinh Việt Nam on Facebook.
In the video, a girl is kneeling before a woman in a black short-sleeved top seated behind a desk.
The woman scolds the girl in Vietnamese and uses a pen to strike the girl’s head and face several times.
According to a Mothership reader, who provided subtitles for the video, the woman was telling the girl to put down her right hand, and repeatedly accused her of lying.
The girl protested that she was not lying, and pleaded for the woman to stop hitting her.
The woman, allegedly, also used profanities while scolding the girl.
Speaking to Mothership, the owner of the centre, Bui Thi Xuyen, confirmed that she was the woman in the video, and that the incident happened sometime during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Bui said the girl in the video is her goddaughter, and she has known the girl since she was seven years old. The girl is 14 now.
She claimed that she had informed the girl's parents that she would be disciplining her and received their approval prior to the incident.
Bui said she was punishing the girl for several reasons, including smoking.
According to her, she is still on good terms with the girl and her parents.
In the video’s comments section, netizens condemned the woman’s actions. The tuition centre’s Facebook page has also received several negative reviews and complaints – mostly in Vietnamese, with many urging a boycott of the centre.
Bui said she filed a police report on May 31.
According to the report seen by Mothership, a mother of a former student at Bui's school was allegedly involved in circulating the video on Facebook.
Bui is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with the same person.
The person allegedly withdrew her child from the school without giving notice and demanded Bui refund $800 in school fees.
According to Bui's statement, the person has allegedly been harassing and hounding her for the refund.
Since the video went viral, Bui has filed another lawsuit against the person for causing harassment, alarm or distress.
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