A 36-year-old high school teacher who suddenly died while proctoring an exam last week stirred up discussions on social media, where the students were criticized for being oblivious to the situation at hand.
Wu Ping, a music teacher at Jichuan High School in Taixing, Jiangsu Province, passed while monitoring a final exam seated at the back of the classroom on Thursday morning. She reportedly died of heart failure.
However, a heavily-circulated WeChat post, written by a local parent, kicked up controversy after it described how her daughter calmly recounted her teacher's death "without the slightest bit of pity."
According to the post, the students kept their eyes on their exams despite hearing Wu groaning in pain. It was only when they finished did students notice the teacher was foaming at the mouth.
Though pointing out that some students eventually alerted a teacher in the next classroom, the post accused the students of showing a lack of empathy and hesitating to react.
Xiao Chunhua, deputy chief of Taixiao education bureau, said the students are not to blame. "The teacher was sitting at the back of the classroom during the exam. We understand that the students might not have noticed something was wrong with the teacher," Xiao told thepaper.com.
The report saw more than 50,000 comments on news portal 163.com, where many called the incident a failure of China's test-focused education system.
