Authorities to crack down on school-disturbing behaviors

Five Chinese authorities took steps to crack down on school-disturbing behaviors by jointly issuing an official opinion on Aug 20.

The Ministry of Justice, together with the Ministry of Education, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security, identified eight types of school-disturbing behaviors and demanded appropriate handling of disputes arising from accidents on school campuses and the tackling of disruptive behaviors under the law.

"Because of these school-disturbing behaviors, schools have to bear liabilities that they are not supposed to bear. Some schools are even afraid of carrying out physical education, organizing extracurricular activities or criticizing students," said Deng Chuanhuai, head of the Department of Policies and Regulations of the Ministry of Education.

"Since such behaviors have hindered the implementation of quality education and affected the making of a benign educational ecosystem, we must make great efforts to tackle them." he added.

By drawing on experience in handling of hospital-disturbing incidents, the opinion first prioritizes caution and prevention, supported by a diversified insurance-centric damage compensation mechanism. It goes on to require schools to actively solve disputes through negotiation, mediation and litigation rather than evade their responsibilities.

According to the opinion, schools must compensate for damages if they are indeed liable for accidents happening on their campuses even if no school-disturbing incident has taken place.

Meanwhile, the opinion also explicitly prohibits schools from paying compensation with the aim of quelling a disturbance, specifying that there should be no compensation before liability is determined.