SINGAPORE: On Tuesday (July 22), a 57-year-old former preschool teacher admitted to one charge of ill-treating a child under the Children and Young Persons Act. She had kicked a four-year-old girl in her class, which resulted in a bruise to the child’s shin.
Alamelu Paramaguru, who is Singaporean, will return to court for sentencing next month. She is no longer with the preschool where the incident occurred, which has not been named in order to protect the child’s identity.
What happened
The incident occurred on April 2, 2024. Alamelu, known as “Teacher Meloo” to her pupils, had been in charge of a particular Kindergarten 1 class on that day.
The children in the class were scheduled to take a nap at 12:00 pm after they had their morning lessons, lunch, and a bath. Shortly before noon, Alamelu asked seven students, including the victim, to move from the part of the room where they were playing, because she needed to place the cots there, which they would use for sleeping.
The victim stayed seated on the floor where she was while the six other pupils moved. The former teacher then put a cot down. But when she turned around, she felt that she had almost tripped because of the little girl, although she did not fall.
Upset, she shouted at the child to sit properly and kicked her on her right leg. Footage from a CCTV camera shows the child in pain, hugging her leg and burying her face. Alamelu did not comfort or attend to her, but instead continued to reprimand the child.
Lianhe Zaobao reported that when the child’s father picked her up from school later that day, she mentioned the pain in her leg. Her parents then brought her to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital to be examined, and a 1 cm by 1 cm bruise was found on her shin.
The child’s parents also filed a police report that night.
CNA reported that the girl told her mother that the former teacher kicked her for “not sitting properly”. The child’s mum, after seeing the bruise on her shin, told the school about what her daughter said. Since Alamelu had already gone home, the other teachers told the mum they would inform the principal about the incident the next day.
When the incident was investigated, Alamelu claimed not to have remembered what happened, but said that her leg could have “unconsciously” touched the child’s leg.
In July 2024, CNA reported that Alamelu was suspended and later she resigned, and the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) said she did not go back to work in the preschool sector.
The former teacher is now out on $15,000 bail and will be back for sentencing on August 19. She faces a jail sentence of up to eight years, a S$8,000 fine, or both, for the ill-treatment of a child. /TISG
