Do Singapore schools have a bullying problem? Some Singaporeans think so

SINGAPORE: There have been two incidents of bullying that have made the news in the past month, which has led some to wonder if there is a bullying problem in Singapore schools.

The first incident involved teens seemingly wearing Bukit View Secondary School uniforms. Though the video is from 2023, it was posted on TikTok only on Sept 15.

It showed a group of adolescent males surrounding a younger student, taking his backpack, and kicking him, causing him to fall to the ground.

This was later investigated by the police, and the boy’s parents filed a report with the authorities as well.

More recently, a secondary one student from Meridian Secondary School sustained a ruptured eardrum when a group of six pupils from the school beat her at the void deck of Block 541, Pasir Ris Street 51.

A police report was filed after this incident as well.

Commenters online have expressed shock after the two incidents made the news, calling especially the Oct 3 Pasir Ris Street occurrence “brutal” and saying that the parents of the students who bullied the other pupils should be held liable or made to take responsibility in other ways.

Others wondered if any meaningful action would be taken against the bullies.

Some even offered to donate money to the parents of the victims.

On Sept 19, before the second incident occurred, a woman whose piece was published in the ST Forum called the bullying issue a “persistent” one.

She also called for more stringent actions to be taken and for the law and education ministries to work together to this end, as well as for the underlying causes of bullying to be looked into in depth.

Local Reddit pages regularly feature community members who recall incidents when they were bullied.

On these posts, many also called for stronger measures that would deter bullying, including financial compensation and restitution.

Other netizens have called for schools to do better in addressing bullying.

On one particular Reddit thread, a number of people shared their experiences of being emotionally, physically,  or verbally abused in the 1990s by their teachers, which is not exactly the same thing, but also showed how a considerable number of students felt unsafe in school.

In the wake of the Bukit View Secondary School bullying, one man shared on r/SGExams that from primary school onwards, he was bullied, in large part due to his skin colour.

Having been bullied all his life, he said that he attempted to take his own life five times.

“To all the parents and teachers out there, PLEASE take bullying seriously. Even if it seems small, it may escalate to something big. It is so much better to overreact than have to suffer the consequences later on,” he wrote. /TISG

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