Sexual abuse a wake-up call to parents, school, MOE

I refer to Ms Kang Yixian’s letter about the head of a school’s department of character and citizenship abusing a student’s trust by exploiting her sexually. (“Safeguards needed to prevent teachers from exploiting students’ trust”; July 4)

Like the writer, I was disturbed by the report.

The writer made two suggestions: First, more should be done by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in the recruitment of teachers. Second, safeguards need to be put in place to prevent such incidents in schools.

I believe the MOE’s teacher selection process is already stringent. Perhaps, more emphasis should be given to character evaluation with references rather than academic qualifications.

The fact that the aberrant teacher was a local merit scholar shows that he has the intelligence to do the job, but not necessarily the moral character.

The other thing that may be worth considering is the role of the teaching community in safeguarding the interests of students. I wonder if any colleague of the convicted teacher noticed that he had an unhealthy relationship with the student. There also needs to be greater vigilance in the supervision of teaching staff.

Finally, parents need to spend time and energy finding out what is going on in their children’s lives.

What has happened is very unfortunate. When such an incident happens, it should result in some soul- searching. This should be a wake-up call to parents, the school community and the ministry.