Teachers confiscate and destroy students' cellphones

A video of teachers from a middle school in Nanyang city of central China’s Henan Province destroying cellphones they confiscated from students on October 8 has gone viral.

As the video shows, teachers either smashed the cellphones with hammers or soaked them in a bucket of water in front of the students, during which time they also read aloud the students’ names that the cell phones belonged to.

The school authorities said they would destroy cellphones students brought to school without first telling their teachers. Dozens of cellphones destroyed in the playground were mostly confiscated when students played with them in the classroom. The authorities said parents were quite cooperative as it was for the students’ own good and would urge them to focus more on their studies.

Quite a few netizens were angry about the practice and said teachers had broken the law by abusing personal property. Some suggested it might be better just to hand the phones to parents after they were confiscated in class.