Safe and secure
I can clearly feel the effects of Sept 11 on Singapore. Of course, apart from the SAF soldiers at the airport and other key installations, the one thing that has really hit my heart is the heightened security in schools.
After paying a visit to so many educational institutions over the past week, I must say that the security industry is indeed thriving. Let’s see, if for every school they hire about 3-4 security officers, that’s a grand addition of several thousand jobs. Furthermore, you can feel the different level of security at the various places.
It’s like for my primary school, I was denied entry flat in the face, with them claiming that I need an appointment to enter and that the school is closed to all. For my secondary school, I was told to exchange for a visitor pass and I need to use a photo-id card. For my college, all I need to do was to just sign in. And for the polytechnics, you can just easily walk in/out without anyone stopping you.
Yes, I do understand the various rationales for the different security levels across the schools. I mean with the recent incidents in Russia, primary schools are indeed the most highly vulnerable. After all, the young ones do deserve the most protection.
But what irks me is the fact that I went back on a day of celebration! I mean I was expecting the school to at least open up, encourage their alumni to drop by to visit. But sadly, that wasn’t the case. Apparently they only allow old boys/girls to pay them a visit only on Teacher’s Day.
Which brings to point, this is highly detrimental to the relationship of the schools and its former students. As ex students are denied entry to their formal institutions, how do you expect them to actually have strong bands with it? Or unless you are implying that primary schools don’t need to care that much about having a good alumni, even though that is usually the place where kids spent the bulk of their education, as well as a time which they have fond childhood memories?
I don’t know whether to blame Osama and all those terrorist groups for this unduly change or should I blame Singapore for being over reactive. But certainly, there are flaws in the current policy now and it will be good if an improved one can be implemented. Hopefully that will be in the near future.
After paying a visit to so many educational institutions over the past week, I must say that the security industry is indeed thriving. Let’s see, if for every school they hire about 3-4 security officers, that’s a grand addition of several thousand jobs. Furthermore, you can feel the different level of security at the various places.
It’s like for my primary school, I was denied entry flat in the face, with them claiming that I need an appointment to enter and that the school is closed to all. For my secondary school, I was told to exchange for a visitor pass and I need to use a photo-id card. For my college, all I need to do was to just sign in. And for the polytechnics, you can just easily walk in/out without anyone stopping you.
Yes, I do understand the various rationales for the different security levels across the schools. I mean with the recent incidents in Russia, primary schools are indeed the most highly vulnerable. After all, the young ones do deserve the most protection.
But what irks me is the fact that I went back on a day of celebration! I mean I was expecting the school to at least open up, encourage their alumni to drop by to visit. But sadly, that wasn’t the case. Apparently they only allow old boys/girls to pay them a visit only on Teacher’s Day.
Which brings to point, this is highly detrimental to the relationship of the schools and its former students. As ex students are denied entry to their formal institutions, how do you expect them to actually have strong bands with it? Or unless you are implying that primary schools don’t need to care that much about having a good alumni, even though that is usually the place where kids spent the bulk of their education, as well as a time which they have fond childhood memories?
I don’t know whether to blame Osama and all those terrorist groups for this unduly change or should I blame Singapore for being over reactive. But certainly, there are flaws in the current policy now and it will be good if an improved one can be implemented. Hopefully that will be in the near future.
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