Why only now? Netizens unhappy that bullying incident at school not addressed earlier

Singapore—Responding to an article which said that students in a bullying incident had been disciplined and counselled, according to the school Principal, netizens are asking why the school did not intervene earlier waiting instead until the matter blew up, first on social media, and then when the Minister of Education, Ong Ye Kung, weighed in on it.

Channel NewsAsia (CNA) reported on Thursday (Mar 12), that Wang-Tan Sun Sun, the Principal of Mee Toh School, had said that the children who had bullied a female student in Primary 5 had been disciplined and had received counseling, adding that they had apologized to the young girl they had bullied.

The victim’s sister had posted on Twitter about a bullying incident on Friday (March 6), saying the young girl had received unkind notes on her birthday, and that this was not the first time as she has gone home with her uniform vandalised with markers and been cyberbullied in the past, and that while she had told the child’s teachers and even wrote to the Ministry of Education (MOE) in the past, nothing had been done.

Ong Ye Kung took to Facebook on Tuesday night (March 10) to comment on the incident, focusing on the racist aspect of the bullying. “It does not matter whether the students might have done it out of mischief or that they are only Primary 5 students; the fact is that the victim felt that it was a racist act, and that makes it even more unacceptable.”

By Thursday, the school Principal’s response was featured in the news.

However, sharp-eyed netizens picked up on one line from the report that said Mrs Wang Tan did not answer CNA’s questions about the times in the past when the family members of the victim reached out for help from the school.