Why must people WAKE up only in the WAKE of a WAKE?

A 15-year-old, Secondary 3 student leapt to his death! Seemingly a good student from a good school. So, what has gone wrong?

It was reported on AsiaOne website on 27 November 2008 that "... on 13 Feb this year, the 15-year-old student jumped to his death when he did not get approval from his teacher and parents to quit his co-curricular activity (CCA), track-and-field."

Actually, the problem with the boy started much earlier. Right from the start, he was unhappy about being in the track-and-field team because his choice was to be in the Drama Club. So, he had expressed his unhappiness by frequently missing training practices as a result. He had communicated and expressed his wish to his teacher and parents to switch to another CCA, but was met with disapproval. The problem is that the people around him were not sensitive to his feelings.

Frankly, the way some schools handle the assignment of CCA has left much to be desired! Parents at times are sandwiched in between because the ultimate decision lies with the school. There are also cases where parents are at fault in "forcing" their children to take up something they don't really like. There are many issues involved in a situation like this. I think the fundamental question to ask is "What is the purpose of CCA? Who is it supposed to benefit, school or student? Should the students' interest be the first priority in CCA assignment, or should the vision and objectives of the school come first?".

The problem is multi-faceted and in this case, I think it is not wrong to say that the student's parents, his teacher, his school and the Ministry of Education each has contributed to the problem. I think it is time that each stakeholder does some reflection to prevent recurrence of similar problems. The general sentiment is that it is always when some lives have been sacrificed that people begin to wake up and listen, or else whatever expression of wishes would always fall to deaf ears.

Almost about ten years old, I made an official request as the Chairman of a Parent Support Group, to the Land Transport Authority (LTA) for a Zebra Crossing to be implemented beside Punggol Primary School for the safety of the students. I was told by the Principal then that an earlier application was rejected. But, I told her I would like to try again. I knew I was in for an uphill task and I was really faced with mammoth objections from the LTA engineer, each pointing to man-made guidelines. I told the engineer then, "You probably have to wait until someone died here, then the request might be approved!".

Unfortunately, true enough, a 20-year-old Full-time National Serviceman was killed by a lorry exiting from the other carpark in the morning. Immediately, all the Heads and Leaders were summoned for an urgent meeting by the MP to investigate into the accident and find solutions. I followed up again on the matter, it was soon after that that my request for the Zebra Crossing was approved. All in, it took nine months' of follow-up at my end, being pushed here and there to different authorities. I learnt a great deal about how people work through this particular initiative.