JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - South African authorities shut down a nursery school on Thursday (April 4) after a video of a school teacher beating little children went viral, local media said.

Three videos of a teacher repeatedly hitting a girl on the head and slapping her on the buttocks have been shared widely on social media.

On one of the clips, the teacher makes the toddler clean up her own vomit.

In another video, a teacher is seen shoving a little girl down on a mat and forcing her to sleep.

Yet another shows a teacher beat a boy on the head, then grabbing him and throwing him to the ground.

The videos have shocked South Africans and sparked widespread anger.

"We are closing this school because of negligence of children," the Gauteng provincial minister for Social Development, Nandi Mayathula-Khoza told the television news network eNCA.

The province's education minister Panyaza Lesufi tweeted: "Disgusting!!! I couldn't even finish watching it!"

Authorities have since discovered that the nursery school in the mining town of Carletonville, 70km west of Johannesburg, was operating without a licence.

Local media reported that a 40-year-old nursery teacher from the school was arrested last week and appeared in court on assault charges.