Bullying incident at Mee Toh School ‘cannot be tolerated’: Ong Ye Kung

SINGAPORE: A case of bullying at Mee Toh School involving a group of Primary 5 students picking on a classmate “is wrong and cannot be tolerated anywhere”, said Education Minister Ong Ye Kung on Tuesday (Mar 10). 

“I was dismayed and troubled when I read about the bullying case at Mee Toh School,” said Mr Ong in a Facebook post. 

“A group of students had picked on a Malay classmate, and wrote her nasty notes. This is bullying, is wrong and cannot be tolerated anywhere, especially in schools,” he wrote. 

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On Mar 6, Twitter user @4YSLZ wrote a post saying that her sister’s classmates had thrown some pieces of paper at her. 

“My heart broke today, it was my sister’s birthday yesterday & one of her classmates threw this to her face as ‘birthday present’,” she wrote.

The pieces of paper had insults scrawled on them, such as “you are dumbo the elephant” and “you look so ugly and you really turn me down you make puke”. 

This is not the first time her sister was bullied, the Twitter user said. Her uniform was scribbled on with markers, she was called names and cyberbullied, she said.  

She said there’s “only a handful of Malays” in the school and her two sisters who went to the school have been the target of racist remarks.

She also said she has contacted the school and teachers, but nothing was done.

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Mr Ong said the incident goes against some “very fundamental values of what we stand for as a society”. 

“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,” he added. 

Mr Ong said the school will ensure that the students understand the seriousness of their actions and will follow up with appropriate disciplinary actions. 

“Our values of kindness, respect for others, cohesiveness as a multi-racial society must be inculcated from a young age, with the collective effort of families, schools and community,” he said. 

“This should be a lesson for all students to learn from.” 

CNA has contacted Mee Toh School for more information.