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The teacher, in the viral social media video, can be seen repeatedly smashing students’ phones with a hammer.

The school was later identified as the Lyceé Joseph Ambourouet Avaro in Gabon in West Africa.

France 24 tracked down two students at the school who confirmed that it was common practice to have their phones seized, but this was the first time that the devices were actually destroyed.

(Image: Facebook)

The school’s deputy head teacher Daniel Esseng later justified the action by pointing to his strict no-mobile rules, one of which states that all devices “confiscated within the high school’s grounds will be immediately destroyed.”

There are, however, some exceptions he insisted — for example, if a student has health problems. Esseng explained that the majority of phones in the video had been seized years ago, and only a few in that pile had been recently confiscated.

The intended message was, he said, to show students that the rules should be followed.

Esseng stressed that, as far as he knew, parents hadn’t complained to staff members about the somewhat radical approach.

The students, however, were frustrated that they had not been verbally informed about the school rules, he said.

(Image: Getty)

It is not the first time teachers have taken extreme action against the mobile phones in the classroom.

In 2015 the Star reported how in the city of Zhengzhou, capital of central China’s Henan Province, it was routine practice for teachers to take phones and destroy them beyond repair.

Many other Chinese secondary and tertiary educational institutes ask students to put their phones in specially allocated lockers or pouches before class instead.