PORN VCD SAGA
Mum glad that MOE has also apologised
By Josephine Chew
FIRST, the school apologised to the parents of the 17 boys involved in the porn VCD fracas on Feb 10.
This was for its 'oversight' in not allowing the 14-year-olds to go for recess, which led to one boy being hospitalised for two nights.
Now nearly a month later, the Ministry of Education (MOE) has also apologised.
This time, for an unintentional inaccuracy in its statement to the press on Feb 17.
Its earlier statement had said that the school, Kent Ridge Secondary, had tried to contact the parents of the boy who had been found with a porn VCD, four days before the police were called in.
It said the father had been contacted when he was on the road, and he did not return the call later.
CALLED THREE TIMES
However, the parents of the boy held that this was not the case.
'They called me at about 6.30pm in the evening while I was driving. When I arrived at my destination, I tried calling but couldn't get through. All in all, I called three times that night,' said the boy's stepfather.
'The next day, Saturday, I left a message with a man saying that I had called but no-one got back to me.'
His anger was mild compared with how agitated his wife was following the Feb 17 press release.
'I was outraged that the press release read as if we hadn't bothered to get back in touch with the school after they tried to call us. This is my son's welfare, of course we would be more than eager to find out what was happening right?' said the boy's mother, Ms Tina R.
She even went to speak to West Coast MP S Iswaran, to register her protest against the school's actions.
Her son was the only boy taken into custody by the police, but he was released on the same night after his parents put up $2,000 as bail.
The family home was also searched on the same night but no additional illegal VCDs were found.
'It was really unfair that it sounded as if we didn't care about our son. It was even more upsetting because after the papers printed this statement, everyone thought that it was our fault for not having called the school to try and settle this earlier, so that the police might not have been called in.
'All my relatives and friends who had been sympathetic earlier turned around and asked us why we didn't care about our son,' the mother said.
But she was relieved that neither her son nor the other two boys who gave statements to the police on that evening are being charged with any offence. They got verbal warnings, two of them on Feb 24, and the third when his mother took him back to the police station on Tuesday. All 17 boys are now back at school.
The one who was hospitalised returned only on Monday.
Several parents who spoke to The New Paper are hoping to put the incident behind them and move on.
'I'm just glad that MOE has come forward to clarify the issue and I really want to put this behind us, especially since he is back at school,' Ms Tina told The New Paper last night.
'But my confidence in the school is seriously shaken and I'm still thinking of taking my son out, despite his protests.'
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PARENT DID RETURN CALL
Miss Seah Jiak Choo, Director of schools, Ministry of Education:
I refer to the statement from the Ministry of Education (MOE) issued on Feb 17 with regard to the actions taken by Kent Ridge Secondary School in the incident concerning the possession of pornographic VCDs by some students.
The statement had noted that the school had managed to contact the parent of one of the boys on Feb 6, who had said he would return the call but did not do so.
The statement was based on information obtained from and verified by the school at the time, and was intended to clarify the school's actions.
Neither the boy in question nor his parents were named, and the statement was not meant to lay blame on the parents.
The school had checked with all its staff, and none of them recalled having received the parent's return call. However, the parent has since informed the school and MOE that he did so.
We would like to apologise to the parents if this was the case, and the statement was inaccurate in this respect.
The school is helping the students involved in the incident to come through this incident in a positive manner.
The Ministry and our schools appreciate and value working in partnership with parents and the community in the best interest of our students.