I READ with concern yesterday's article, 'Uproar on Net over birthday-prank clip'. The administration of Anglo-Chinese Junior College (ACJC) said the birthday girl and her classmates involved in the ragging incident did it in good fun. It said the students involved had been counselled on possible hazards of such activities and told there were more appropriate ways to show friendship among peers.

Full Story

The youngsters are too young to to differentiate the right and the wrong.

The not so young and not so old can easily differentiate the wrong from the right. But they are not in power to do something.

The old and in power have experience and seen so much in life that they are no longer able to what is the normal and what is the extreme.

It is tragic but not uncommon these days to encounter the old having The Identity Crisis, and in their desperate bid to appear young-at-heart, start buying into the young's ways of doing things regardless of whether such activities go against the many values the old grew up with.

These younsters are simply too much ....they take matters into their own hands.... and I find the whole episode "disgusting" and very "distasteful"

I hope the authority will "punish" these youngsters involved and send a clear message to deter would be "copy cat" .......

Watching these actions of student in the video on how they think its a way of having fun to celebrate a fellow student birhtday, and the response of the school principal...i dont think we are going to see many ladies and gentelman in our future.

It is a by-product of the education system.

I would like to point out to the author of this post that, if it was as stated, the ragging/hazing was done in "good fun". I have not seen the clip myself, but I believe that this is a case where something that happens often in Singapore schools was taken too far. While ignorance does not absolve the students involved from any blame, it has nothing to do with social responsibility. We have a generation of bright young leaders who have gone to schools like ACJC that inculcated exemplary values. Ragging gone wrong does in no way represent the future of our socio-political climate.

Ragging should not be encouraged, and I believe that schools are at this very moment looking to do what they can to ensure this is enforced. The Japanese were engaged in war-time atrocities; this is far from one.

And lastly, in contrast, I believe the coverage given to this incident will in fact spur students' understanding of the serious consequences of ragging, and we will hopefully not see something like this happen again.

ACJC is not a top junior college. it's not even considered as 1 of the top 5 junior colleges (Raffles, Victoria, National, Hwa Chong and Temasek JCs are the top 5) in Singapore. ACJC is only tops when it comes to raising funds and spending money on top-notch school facilities.

With regards to your second point, is not ragging any different from teasing and joking with friends? Jokes can also have an emotional impact (whether positive or negative) on people even though it was not intended. Is it then implied that we should never joke around with our friends for fear of the repercussions?

Also counselling can be a good way to prevent further incidents like this happening depending on how the individual student takes it. If not what would you suggest? Punishment in the form of suspension or expulsion for something that is very common in every school in Singapore and worldwide? The principal of ACJC did not explicity say that the school felt that ragging was no big deal, but basically understood where the students were coming from in the sense that they were just having a little fun with consent of the birthday girl.

However, I think whats of more importance is that other students learn from this incident and ultimately what is defined as ragging is a very relative definition which varies across cultures and different social groups. It is up to the different schools to decide on the most appropriate actions taken instead of pandering to what will send across the best message to other schools.

Its because the quality of students, even in a 'top' JC like this one has dropped like bloody *&it. Imagine students (such as the girls in the video behaving like Ah Lians.

Actually, if you see them swagger with their blouses stitched up instead of neatly tucked in, its already one damn clear sign that they have become lians. During my time, the girls in my Pre U class had no problem dressing up smartly and neatly and behaving like high class, educated ladies, so proud to be in the Pre U class.

The last time I saw a similar scene was when the girls from a rock bottom neighbourhood school behave like that in the playground below my block. Damn shocking to see girls from a 'top' JC behave like that.

When I rang the school, at least the vice principal thanked me and sent the discipline master and ministress over to round them up and march them back to school. But the principal of this JC seems to want to cover up and imply that they were just being boisterous.

#4, Sorry ah, I think the JC principal dare not punish them. The most, get the counselor to liam at them a bit. Maybe thats why we get such students nowadays.

Maybe thats why if you live next to a neighbourhood school, you can hear the students shouting and banging things the whole day long, sounding more like its a prison with out of control inmates. Can also hear the teachers shouting pathetically.