The blame game

Hold teachers accountable (29 November 2010)

THE Ministry of Education (MOE) said in its reply last Wednesday (“Child porn scholar: Teachers omitted peeping offence”) that the teachers of scholarship holder Jonathan Wong had not included in his testimonials the fact that he was publicly caned as a student in 2002 for peeping in a women’s toilet.

Testimonials, especially for scholarships, should not gloss over such important details and facts. In future, MOE should hold the issuer of such testimonials accountable for any omission big or small, or it will defeat the purpose of a testimonial.

Let us take this as an embarrassing lesson.

 

Let us take this letter as an embarrassing lesson that Singaporeans are still incapable of giving people second chances. For all the talk of how developed this country is, so many people’s mindsets are still not mature enough to look beyond witch-hunts and grasp the idea that, sometimes, human beings make mistakes which they ought not to have to pay for for the rest of their lives.

I’m not about to defend a child pornographer. What he did was reprehensible and – rightly – he is going to pay dearly for the offence. But that is not to say that his teachers were wrong to give him a second chance, particularly when he was considered by professional therapists to have responded well to treatment back then. He got his second chance, and he did not take it. That is not any fault of his teachers. As a sentient adult with – as far as I know – perfect control of his mental faculties, the fault is entirely his own.

So why look for someone else to blame? Must there always be a scapegoat?

It was a youthful indiscretion. He was punished at that time, and underwent treatment subsequently. He was judged to respond well to this treatment and the case was, reasonably, considered closed. There was no way any of his teachers could know he would re-offend on such a scale in future. They did the right thing, the compassionate thing, and refrained from passing negative judgement on him in a document that would be with him for life. Has our flawless author of this letter never made a mistake in his life, or been given a second chance by anybody? It is his transparent lack of compassion for fellow human beings that is embarrassing.

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