Caning not included

According to the article, wong, age 23 was caught in England a fortnight ago for downloading child pornography.

At a young age, he had already commited an offence for peeping in a primary school girl's toilet. It goes to shows that

he had not learnt from his lessons and instead he continue with his inmoral acts.

However his offences were not recorded in the school disciplinary records due to the school system.The principal believe

in giving them a second chance. In my opinion, I feel that the principal should be fair and square. He should "go by the law"

and punish them accordingly for their offences, depending on how serious the matter is. I believe that the character of a child

is nutured and "mould" since young. It will make a big impact on their life in future. If a person is to be scott free from

the mistakes they made, they will not think that they are in wrong and the possibiblity of them commiting the same mistakes in future

will be quite high. In this aticle, it is a case of peeping and downloading of pornography. But what if it is a case of robbery? raping? or even murdering?

The consequences would not just be caning, it can be as serious as a death penalty if the person is being convicted as a murderer.

This case is somehow similar to a case which happened recently in NYP. There's a Year 3 student from NYP who molested 4 girls in the pervious month.

He was found guilty and arrested. He should feel ashamed for doing such things and this defintely will affect the reputation of the school.

However, if we were not to condemn his mistakes, there will be more victims.Thus, I feel that some actions should be taken to guard against such crimes to happen again.

He shall be dealt with severely for the offences that he had committed.

Sometimes, not condemning one's mistakes is equal to harming them.

-TRICIA.

I refer to the article "Caning not included" on asiaone.com. The article is about the sensational story of an ex Singaporean scholar being caught in England for downloading child pornography and how his stint in his teenage years, where he was caught for peeping in a primary girl's school toilet and was caned, was omitted from the MOE's disciplinary system.

Personally I believe that the school has done no wrong. Educators have said before that they would usually cane the student and leave the incident unrecorded and this is understandable, educators will think twice before listing offences in the MOE's tracking system, as this would result in the pupil being blacklisted by the MOE for life, thus this option is only reserved for problem students or very serious offences.

In his teenage years, Jonathan Wong has been described as a soft spoken student with exceptionally good grades with no prior discipline problems. In this context, it is no surprise that the teachers decided to punish him by public caning and omitt the offence from the disciplinary tracking system as they believed that he was a pupil with much potential, he would learn from his mistakes and they didn't want to any of his future prospects in life due to what seemed like a minor lapse of judgement at that time. Perhaps they could have sent the student to counselling following the caning, to monitor his behaviour and prevent such a problem from reoccuring inthe future

Thierry

Hidden offences of peeping tom.

Its such a shame that someone who has a scholarship actually has such weird quirks. And these quirks eventually lead him to losing his scholarship, and being known to us, Singaporeans, that he is not only a peeping tom, but he's also someone who watches child pornography.

It has only been said that Jonathan Wong's offence (peeping in a primary school girl's toilet) committed 8 yeras ago, was not recorded in the disciplinary tracking system as it was only in 2005 that Ministry Of Education (MOE) made it compulsory for primary and secondary schools to disclose all discipline records.
I felt that MOE should bear a bit of responsibility for such an error because disciplinary records should all be recorded for future references and not giving second chances just because "His teachers thought that Wong had overcome his errant behaviour after professional help". Such thoughts ended up having a scholarship wasted and bringing slight disgrace to us, Singaporeans.

Such behaviors are really unacceptable.

Students have to face up what they have done.

In my opinion, they should be given to a second chance. However, a light penalty should not be how they rounded up this case. He should receive severe punishment the very first time he did it when he was in catholic high school. This was to ensure that there he will not commit the same mistake.

The following schools should also submit his records into the system. They should set a good example and be responsible and honest for their students instead of hiding it from the Ministry Of Education claiming that they think that he deserves a second chance. This will be very unfair to the other students who did something that are not as severe and are recorded into the system. Schools should face responsibility on the later events as they did not taught him well on his morals.

Schools have to take measure of severity of the punishment if it was the first time the student doing it or not. Hence, it is really important for the schools to record mischiefs into the system and Chinese High School have obviously did not play a role in that area.

This article also shows how he became worse after the years due to the lack of punishment he deserves. As he was not taken seriously after committing all these peeping, he did not think twice upon doing after the second attempt.

He should be punished severely this time round as it has been neglected for the rest of his misdeeds. Furthermore, he committed this misdeed abroad, hence reflected on us, singaporeans. Bringing our reputation down. He should be given a second chance as he lost his second chance a long time ago.

JERANNE.