The government will protect teachers conferred with the authority to cane students should dissatisfied parents resort to legal action, said Education Minister Musa Mohamad today.

He said the government was obliged to defend the teachers if they carried out their responsibility properly and complied with the pre-conditions set by the ministry before caning the errant students.

"The government is responsible for protecting them but if the teachers do it without following the rules, that's a different story," he was quoted as saying in a Benama report.

In view of this, the minister said a national panel to protect the right to cane and the teachers given the power to do so, was not necessary.

The minister was commenting on the call by National Union of Teaching Profession (NUTP) president Tengku Habsah Tengku Petra yesterday for the setting up of a national level panel to protect the teachers.

Public caning

On public caning, Musa said he did not agree with it as it can affect the students..

"The aim of caning is not to shame them but to teach them. Teaching through shaming someone, to me, is not the right thing to do," he added.

The minister said he was confident that the teachers given the right to cane would exercise their power judiciously.

Yesterday, he said in order to handle the escalating problem of indiscipline among students, principals and headmasters had complete power to decide which teachers in their school could be given the right to cane students.

He said it was also their discretion whether to give the right to certain teachers or to all of them.

However, certain quarters have expressed concern over the new power for teachers as it could lead to abuse.

The ministry had decided to confer teachers with the power to cane following a spate of news reports on the cases of gangsterism in schools.