A teacher who inflicted corporal punishment on a student for applying lip balm is to be penalized, according to Gwangju Metropolitan Office of Education, Monday.

The GMOE said the middle school teacher, 37, punished the student for applying tinted lip balm and was accused of violence by the pupil’s father.

Applying make-up is actively discouraged for teenagers within the Korean academic curriculum while direct corporal punishment was banned from Korean schools by the government in March 2011. 


Some form of indirect corporal punishments -- having students bunny-hop or stand at the back of the class with raised arms -- still remain commonly condoned.

While each side’s testimony differ on the degree of corporal punishment involved, it is clear that a physical punishment did take place, according to the GMOE.

The case will be passed to the relevant action committee to penalize the teacher.

In previous court rulings, some of the punishments that were regarded against the law included: “emotional punishment by the teacher stemming from the students disobeying instructions,” “emotional punishment by the teacher who claims to have felt humiliated by the student’s puerile actions,” “kicking with the heel of the shoes, or other such demeaning punishments,” “hitting an 11-year-old with a wooden stick 50 centimeters in length and 3 centimeters in diameter,” “hitting the student’s head with a stick” and “leaving irrevocable aftereffects on the student by hitting the shoulders, arms and head with a mop” and more.

By Lim Jeong-yeo (kaylalim@heraldcorp.com)