DepEd asks RTU to submit incident report of what led to student death

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education is currently investigating a public high school’s handling of a student cheating incident to determine if its personnel had violated any laws in carrying out the school’s rules against academic dishonesty.

The laboratory high school of the Rizal Technological University has been asked to submit an incident report to DepEd explaining the death of a Grade 7 student in its own premises last week, DepEd National Capital Region Director Wilfredo Cabral said in an interview with Sen. Raffy Tulfo in his "Wanted sa Radyo" radio show on Wednesday.

“What we’ll be checking based on the report that will be submitted to us is if (what the teachers said) to the student is part of their (school) manual,” Cabral said in a mix of English and Filipino.

“When a teacher commits a violation, this is handled by the school’s management. But at the Regional Office, we will look at whether it’s the school itself that committed a violation in handling cases like this,” Cabral said.

DepEd also told Philstar.com in a message that its Learner Rights and Protection Office is also looking into the incident.

This comes after a Grade 7 student of the high school department of RTU died by suicide last week on campus, as confirmed by his parents and the Mandaluyong City police on Tulfo’s radio show. The university released a statement last Thursday confirming the student’s death and vowed to be transparent about its investigation into what transpired prior to the student’s death.

Speaking on the same radio show, the Grade 7 student’s parents said that their child most likely experienced extreme emotional distress after being caught and reprimanded by their teacher for cheating during a test. 

While the parents said they were told by the school that the child’s teachers “spoke gently” and “did not utter the word ‘suspension’” to the student, they said they found a piece of paper among the student’s belongings indicating that he was informed of his suspension.

“We recovered a piece of paper among our child’s belongings that he left neatly arranged (before he died)... We found a piece of paper with his handwriting containing the words: ‘Tabulating