Parliament: MPs want to see more efforts made to check on students’ mental health and bullying in schools

• Education Minister Chan Chun Sing fielded questions from several MPs in Parliament
• The questions ranged from academic stress to monitoring mental health and tackling cyber bullying  
• Mr Chan said putting a child in a popular school may do more harm than good if it is a bad fit
• It is up to parents to help their child find their strengths and potential in a suitable environment, he added

SINGAPORE — Enrolling children in a school that is a bad fit for them may do more harm than good for their self-confidence and mental health, even if the school is a popular one, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said.

Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday (July 27), he said that it is very sad to see a child return from school “without any sparkle in the eye” because they are made to feel like they are living up to someone else’s expectations of them.

“It destroys the confidence of the child,” Mr Chan said when responding to a question raised by Mr Liang Eng Hwa, Member of Parliament (MP) for Bukit Panjang.

Mr Liang was one of 15 MPs from both sides of the aisle — which included Workers’ Party MP Sylvia Lim, Progress Singapore Party’s Non-Constituency MP Hazel Poa and Nominated MP Shahira Abdullah — who, over close to one-and-a-half hours, sought clarifications from Mr Chan about the recent alleged murder in River Valley High School.

The incident, which took place on Monday last week and shocked the nation, has cast the spotlight on the mental well-being of students in schools here. 

Mr Liang told of how, at Meet-the People sessions as MP, he had come across several parents who sought help obtaining transfers for their children out of “so-called more competitive schools”, either because the children could not cope with the academic pressure or were unable to fit into the school.

He then asked whether the Ministry of Education (MOE) could be “more sympathetic” in granting school transfers of students. 

“The change of environment could be what the child needs to reset and to start afresh,” he added.

Mr Chan assured Mr Liang that MOE would look at all requests “sympathetically and compassionately”, especially if it pertains to improving the well-being of the child.

Parents may need to play their part in the first place. Rather than constantly measure a child according to someone else’s yardstick, Mr Chan added that they should consider the perspectives of their child.

It is the parents’ job to help their children realise their different strengths and potential, by putting them in an environment where they can feel “confident and comfortable”.

“Some perform well in a competitive environment, others perform well in a more nurturing environment,” Mr Chan said. “And it is best for us to start from the basis of our child's interests first.”

ACADEMIC STRESS

In response to questions from other MPs, Mr Chan acknowledged that there is a need to address academic stress.

Mr Alex Yam, MP for Marsiling-Yew Tee Group Representation Constituency (GRC), remarked that when one talks about education in Singapore, the word “stress” is often closely associated with it.

Mr Chan said that there is a need to find an optimal point, because too much might break a person, whereas too little may not help the student grow as a person.

Although he will address how stress in schools can be reduced during a workplan seminar later this year, he repeated an earlier point from his ministerial statement on the River Valley High School case that it will be helpful to redefine the meaning of success.

Mr Chan highlighted that Israeli youth often go on gap years before entering university. This is a time when students take a break from studies for self-discovery or personal enrichment.

One Israeli told him that they often ask themselves this question during that break: “Where have my friends not been to? I want to go and explore that place and bring back something different for my country and society.”

Mr Chan said that this left a deep impression on him because it showed that they were not all going after the same definition of success but rather, they try to distinguish themselves.

“I thought it's a powerful idea. I thought if all of us can take a leaf out of this, we will be a much more resilient society with diverse capabilities and, perhaps, much less stressed (from) pursuing the same objective.” 

Several MPs, such as West Coast GRC MP Patrick Tay and Ms Poa, also spoke about monitoring the mental well-being of students, particularly those who need help.

Doing so could help the schools “prevent trigger events”, Mr Tay said. 

In reply, Mr Chan said that there was a need to respect the confidentiality of a student’s medical records.

“This will not be passed around to different agencies,” he said. “Only in the exceptional cases where there is a real threat that agencies might then take actions to work with other agencies to pre-empt this.”

One example is when someone expresses an intention to harm another while seeking help with an agency. In such cases, the agency has a responsibility to seek verification and see if further actions are required to safeguard the well-being of the individual and the community. 

Otherwise, any information shared by someone seeking help will be kept in confidence.

East Coast GRC MP Cheryl Chan asked what MOE is doing to curb incidences of bullying and if the River Valley High School incident was related to a case of bullying. 

Mr Chan said preliminary police investigations show that the two students did not know each other, so there was no suggestion that bullying had led to the alleged murder.

In any case, Mr Chan said that MOE does not stand for bullying in schools, but noted that tackling cyber bullying will prove to be a greater challenge compared to physical bullying.

As for those who are aware of cases of cyber bullying, there is a “responsibility to stand up for one another”. 

“We must learn to come together to support one another… not to tear down other people just to make ourselves feel relatively superior, (for) that itself is a sign of weakness.”

The problem is unlikely to go away anytime soon and there is a need to teach the young to not only be confident in themselves, but accept themselves for who they are, he added.

“Most of us wake up every day feeling average. Most of us, definitely for me, we all look average.”

Therefore, there is no need to live up to somebody else's image, and be “held ransom by such psychology”, he added.