Last month, a 13-year-old student from India named Kajal Gaud, passed away a week after allegedly being forced to perform 100 sit-ups with her heavy school bag on her back as punishment for arriving a few minutes late to school.
What followed was not correction or learning, but a tragedy that cost a child her life and placed a teacher in the path of criminal prosecution.
The incident occurred outside Malaysia. But it should not feel distant, because the assumptions behind that punishment - that physical suffering builds discipline, that children can be pushed until compliance is achieved - are familiar to many within our own education system.
In Malaysia, school discipline is governed by the Education (School Discipline) Regulations 1959 and further clarified through Ministry of Education Circular No. 7/2003, which tightly regulates the use of caning. These instruments limit who may administer caning, how it is carried out, and under what circumstances. Yet beyond caning, the guideline is largely silent. Informal punishments such as push-ups, squats, star jumps, knuckle-rapping, prolonged standing, or public humiliation are neither expressly authorised nor clearly prohibited.
This legal silence has consequences.
Even regulated corporal punishment has resulted in serious harm. In 2023, SUHAKAM issued a press statement following an incident where a student suffered an eye injury as a result of caning, raising concerns about proportionality, safety, and children’s rights within school discipline practices. If harm can occur within a regulated framework, the risks posed by unregulated, improvised punishments are even more troubling.
Many Malaysians recall these informal punishments as routine. Students were made to stand on tables, hold heavy books above their heads, perform repeated physical drills until exhaustion, or endure sharp ruler strikes on their knuckles. These practices persisted not because they were lawful, but because they were culturally tolerated - framed as “normal”, effective, or character-building.
Medical and psychological evidence tells a different story.
Research published in the Malaysian Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health has highlighted that forced physical punishment increases fear and anxiety rather than discipline, and is associated with long-term behavioural and emotional harm. Psychologists caution that physical exertion imposed under stress or humiliation alters the body’s response: breathing becomes erratic, panic can set in, and fainting or collapse may occur. In rare cases, particularly where a child has an undiagnosed medical condition, excessive exertion can trigger serious cardiac events.
These risks are often overlooked because exercises like push-ups appear harmless. But exercise undertaken voluntarily is fundamentally different from exercise imposed as punishment, under threat, shame, or authority. Context matters.
At the same time, many educators acknowledge that discipline has become increasingly difficult to enforce. In a Malay Mail report from Kuching, teachers spoke candidly about overcrowded classrooms, rising behavioural challenges, and the absence of clear guidance, admitting that responses are sometimes driven by frustration or inherited practices rather than policy. Parents interviewed in the same report expressed concern that public humiliation and excessive physical tasks often escalate conflicts instead of resolving them, particularly among adolescents.
Students themselves have voiced similar concerns. Academic studies published in SARJANA record students describing how repeated harsh punishment made them numb or defiant rather than disciplined. One student admitted that punishment no longer affected him; another said it only encouraged repeated misbehaviour until teachers gave up. These accounts challenge the assumption that physical punishment produces better conduct. Instead, it risks normalising violence or breeding resistance.
The policy landscape is beginning to shift. According to New Straits Times, the Ministry of Education is reviewing measures to strengthen school discipline frameworks while addressing bullying and student welfare. These discussions include clearer boundaries, non-violent disciplinary alternatives, and improved training for teachers in behaviour management.
Teachers’ groups have also raised legitimate concerns. The National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) has called for stronger legal protection and clearer rules for educators enforcing discipline, warning that ambiguity leaves teachers exposed to complaints and prosecution. Without transparent guidelines on what is permissible, teachers are left relying on personal judgment - a situation that benefits no one.
It is in this context that the Indian tragedy must be understood. Sit-ups, when used as punishment, are not benign. They are performed under stress, fear, and pressure, often without regard for a child’s physical condition. When carried out excessively or without safeguards, the risk of injury, collapse, or worse becomes real.
The student in India was reportedly punished for being ten minutes late. No reasonable adult would consider such an extreme physical punishment proportionate or safe. The outcome was not improved discipline, but the loss of a life - and another life, the teacher’s, irreversibly altered by a single moment of poor judgment. This is a critical point often overlooked in debates about school discipline: teachers, too, bear serious personal consequences when punishment crosses the line.
In Malaysia, this accountability is not theoretical. Recent cases reported by the New Straits Times show that teachers can and have been charged when disciplinary actions result in harm to students, reflecting the state’s duty to uphold student protection laws and the legal responsibilities borne by educators. When informal punishments cause injury, intent is not the only issue - outcome matters, and liability follows.
Malaysia’s conversation on school discipline must therefore move beyond a narrow fixation on caning. The more pressing issue lies in the widespread use of unregulated punishments that persist because they appear trivial or routine. These practices not only place students at risk, but also expose teachers to legal action, professional sanction, and lifelong consequences arising from split-second decisions made under pressure.
When a single act of punishment can destroy two lives at once, it becomes impossible to justify harsh physical discipline as necessary. If discipline is truly meant to guide students, then the methods employed must be constructive, proportionate, and safe. This tragedy is a reminder that schools must rethink not only what they punish, but how - because the cost of getting it wrong is far too high.
Muthiah & Sabrina are simply two lawyers with plenty of thoughts to share. Nothing here is meant to offend. Only to invite reflection and conversation.
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