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Mungkorn Kulvanich, deputy secretary general of the Basic Education Commission, said directors told him teachers had punished students because they skipped classes.

The punishment was part of an arrangement between the teacher and students - that anyone absent would be caned, Mungkorn explained.

Earlier, teacher Suwattana Permpoon was reported to have disciplined one of eight Mathayom 2 (Grade 8) students with up to 18 strokes of the cane on Monday, for skipping classes to attend a protest against the school being forced to move.

"Five of the eight students were caned but three others were not caned as they gave reliable explanations to the teacher," Mungkorn said.

Hundreds of Yothinburana students went to Parliament on Friday to protest after the school was told to relocate to make way for the new parliament.

The mother of one student claimed her daughter was caned 18 times by Suwattana on Monday even though she had not participated in the protest.

She said she took her daughter home on Friday and had already told a teacher that.

The mother was reported to have filed a complaint at Taopoon police station, accusing the teacher of overly harsh treatment of her girl.

But police said yesterday no one had filed any complaints against the teacher.

A Mathayom 2 student at the school, who asked not to be named, said Suwattana was in charge of Mathayom 2 students, responsible for checking which students were absent each day. If any were found to be absent she would cane them as many times as the number of periods they had missed. So the absent students had to be caned 18 times.

"Last Friday most higher secondary students went to the Parliament House to join the protest and the school also held a science project exhibition so there were a lot of lower secondary students who skipped classes," she said.

"The teacher misunderstood that the student who went back home with her mother skipped classes. She didn't know the girl's mother took her home and the student did not explain anything. When the teacher asked how many times she wanted her to be caned. She told the teacher to cane her 18 times consecutively though the teacher asked her many times if she really wanted her to do that."

Suwattana reportedly decided to quit as head of Mathayom 2 students after the incident.

The student said Suwattana was strict but most students respected her because she only punished those who did wrong things. She always helped students when they had problems so many were not happy that she had decided not to oversee Mathayom 2 students anymore.