New school practice for protecting children from maltreatment under the “shadow pandemic” and “failure to protect” offence

A five-year-old kindergarten girl who died of maltreatment in 2018 shocked Hong Kong, bringing up the recommendation on the legislation of “Failure to Protect” offence. The unprecedented increase in domestic violence globally since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic made the United Nations Women describe it “shadow pandemic”. The paper aims to explore the new school practice for protecting children from maltreatment under the “shadow pandemic” and “failure to protect” offence from the perspective of teacher education. This paper contributes cutting-edge views on the unprecedented issue. The views of this paper are based on the author’s comparison and professional interpretation. Comparison is made between the 2020 newly revised “Protecting Children from Maltreatment – Procedural Guide for Multi-disciplinary Co-operation” and its previous version. Professional interpretation is generated from the author’s professional experiences. The implication is that school personnel have not effectively reported these cases mainly because of insufficient knowledge to recognise the signs of abuse. It is recommended to strengthen the Family-School-Community Collaboration training of protecting children from maltreatment. Copyright © 2021 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.