Hong Kong nursery ordered to submit report after boy’s mystery head injury

Hong Kong education authorities have ordered a nursery in Kowloon Tong to submit a report after it allegedly failed to explain why a two-year-old pupil had a large bump on the back of his head after classes.

The Education Bureau said it was highly concerned about the incident at Cannan Kindergarten and Nursery (Waterloo Road) and had told the school to submit a report.

“Upon receiving the complaint from the parents, the bureau immediately contacted the parents and the school to understand the situation and requested that the school handle the matter seriously and submit a report on the incident,” it said.

“The bureau will follow up in accordance with established procedures, continue to monitor the progress of the investigation, and require the school to provide an appropriate account to the parents.”

According to the boy’s father, Joseph Lau, his son boarded the school bus at about 12.30pm on November 5 and underwent a routine physical check before entering the campus, during which no injuries were reported.

At about 4.45pm, a teacher called the boy’s mother, telling her there was a bump on the back of her son’s head. Not knowing what had happened, the mother agreed to have the child sent home, first into the care of his grandparents.

When Lau returned home at about 10.30pm, he noticed the goose-egg size of the injury and rushed the child to Kwong Wah Hospital in Yau Ma Tei.

“The doctor asked how the child bumped his head, whether he had a shock, threw up, passed out and was able to walk a straight line, but we could not answer any of them,” the father said.

An X-ray scan found no skull injury. The hospital prescribed painkillers and advised the family to bring the boy back if they noticed anything abnormal.

The next day, the boy’s father filed a police report. “It’s impossible that the accident did not happen at school because they conducted a check before he entered the campus,” he said.

Lau learned from an officer a few hours later that the principal and the school social worker had checked surveillance camera footage and found that “nothing happened to the child”.

He contacted the principal later, and was told “they did not know how the child got hurt” and “it had nothing to do with the school”.

He also spoke to the teacher who had informed the boy’s mother of the injury. The teacher said she did not call police or take the child to the hospital immediately after seeing the bump because she was busy with the school dismissal.

The school bus driver and nanny also said they had seen nothing, according to Lau.

Lau decided to withdraw his child from the nursery and filed complaints with the bureau, the Social Welfare Department, the school board and several child welfare NGOs.

“We spoke to everyone, but no one could tell what happened to my child,” he said.

“A basic expectation for a school is to provide a safe environment for children and have crisis awareness in handling accidents like this. We had no choice but to withdraw our child because of safety concerns, but they did not seem to find it a concern at all.”

Lau said the family had applied to the nursery because of its good reputation among parents and its affiliation with a kindergarten, but they had since lost trust in the school and were scrambling to find a nursery place for the boy.

He understood that the bureau was following up with the school and an investigation would take about a month.

“I don’t expect an investigation to uncover the truth behind the accident … after all, the damage is done,” Lau said.

The South China Morning Post has contacted the school and police for comment.