by Brad Bowyer

But this is the typical scenario we see playing out again and again when another institutional failing is thrown into the public eye.

Tokenism and no genuine desire to solve the issue just convene another open-ended committee and hope it goes away quickly so the status quo can return.

The fact that they allocated only one and a half hours for the meeting and had “other important meetings to go to” immediately after shows exactly how they really felt about the issue.

Reacting and uttering placating statements but limiting the student’s ability to make their statements and ask questions.

This is now a national level issue and of strong public concern.

It has been revealed that 26 cases of sexual misconduct have happened in the last 3 years alone at National University of Singapore (NUS) and many students feel the way they have been handled is inadequate and others like Monica now feel unsafe in their environment.

And a quick meeting and pushing off answering questions to others not present is supposed to solve it?

Madam Halimah Yacob is the Chancellor of NUS as well as the President of Singapore, where has she been in all of this?

Our Home Affairs and Law Minister, K Shanmugam, issued a short comment that he got the police to make a statement but otherwise he has been silent.

On a lower level where was the review committee that NUS convened to look into it?

Why were ALL their members not in attendance to spend “as long as it took” to understand the student’s feelings and opinions?

These are moral and ethical issues, the question of fair and appropriate punishment, questions of student’s safety and mental wellbeing, questions of what is happening in all our places of higher learning as we are seeing them happen not just at NUS.

Questions that need answers and action and yet key people are AWOL?

No wonder our young people feel let down and aggrieved.

What confidence will they have to drive forward in a future run by people who let them down so badly?

They deserve better, We all deserve better.

This was first published on Brad Bowyer’s Facebook page and reproduced with permission.

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