The ruling allows principals and teachers to cane students with disciplinary problems.

According to a report by New Straits Times, Zakaria Abdullah, a supplier of rotan in Pasar Payang here, said most of his customers were teachers and parents, but while parents only bought one or two rotan to discipline their own children, teachers had to buy more as they had to deal with many students.

“I once asked a teacher who buys rotan from me almost every month if there is anything wrong with the rotan’s quality. She told me it had nothing to do with quality and that there would be no need to use the rotan if students were attentive and disciplined,” he said.

Zakaria, who has been in the business for 20 years, sells about 50 rotan a month.

He said the best time to sell rotan was right before a new school term.

He added that a rotan costs RM5 today, compared with RM3 about 20 years ago.