Uniform in schools: Case of common identity or loss of individual identity?

All schools providing education up to pre-university level, with the exception of polytechnics, require their students to don school uniforms so as to conform with the guidelines stipulated by the Ministry of Education (MOE). With so many arguments going on about whether uniforms should be made compulsory to be worn by students, let's take a look at both sides of the debate.

Advocates of the adoption of school uniform policies say that uniforms can promote school safety, improve discipline, enhance the learning environment and most importantly, instill a sense of common identity among students.. It promotes school safety because it allows staff to identify students among the crowd in the school, and thus intruders who do not belong to the school can be easily detected. It also instills discipline among students because students are carrying the image of the school when they are outside school in uniforms, and this prompts them to put up their best behaviour under the wary eyes of the public. Uniforms enhance learning environment because all students are equal when they don the same uniforms. For example, students are not able to wear branded clothes to school to flaunt their wealth, and thus poorer students will not feel inferior and will be able to concentrate better during lessons, instead of looking on at their peers' possession with envy. Lastly, uniforms promote a common school identity. This will make them feel more attached to the school and motivates them to do their best when they represent the school.

Despite all the positive qualities brought about by uniforms, there are also people who are against uniform policies. Their one and only major concern is that uniforms make them lose their individual identity. They are unable to be recognised and acknowledged by their names, but by their institutions their uniforms are representing. They also have no say when the uniforms do not suit them, such as the colour not complementing the skin colour or the cutting and shape not suiting the body shape and size. Hence, these people are unwilling to wear uniforms.

In my opinion, the advantages brought about by uniforms outweigh the disadvantages. However, i do agree that certain uniforms can be improved such that they look better on most students. Therefore, i am in support of uniform policies only if the uniforms can be modified or re-designed to look better.

Bring your own bags!

2nd May was "Bring Your Bag Day" which many supermarket chains, such as FairPrice, Sheng Siong, Carrefour, Cold Storage, Shop N Save, Giant Hypermart and Prime took part in. A survey conducted on 440 shoppers in 5 of the participating supermarket chains found that 44 per cent of shoppers brought their own bags, or bought reusable ones sold at the supermarkets while another 34 per cent paid 10 cents for each plastic bag they took, as a donation to the Singapore Environment Council for green projects. The remaining 22 per cent refused to pay for the bags.

That brings me back to my topic of bringing our own bags when go shopping. Singapore uses about 2.5 billion plastic bags a year - or about 625 bags per person each year. Most of these plastic bags are incinerated so they do not contribute to landfill. However, burning the bags releases cancer- causing dioxins and carbon dioxide and contributes to global warming. Therefore it was proposed that plastic bags be charged so as to reduce its consumption. In my opinion, this can only be at best a short term solution, the reason being that the plastic bags are priced too low to even make an impact on consumer's spending. What is more important I think, is to educate our people on the 3 "r"s - reduce, reuse and recycle.

Reducing the consumption of plastic bags will contribute less to global warming and air pollution as less of them will have to be incinerated. Imposing charges on plastic bags will only reduce consumption for a short period of time. To effectively reduce consumption over a long period of time, advertisements should be placed to educate the people. On top of that, supermarkets can give out less plastic bags, by placing more items in one bag.

Reuse. Currently, many households are already practising reuse of plastic bags. For example, waste materials and garbage are filled in these plastic bags and then disposed off cleanly. This constitutes a good hygiene practice and is the perfect example of reusing of plastic bags.

At the present state of technology, recycling of plastic bags are yet to to be made possible, but I am confident that in the near future they can be recycled just like other items such as drink cans and by then, we will be able to put these plastic bags into recycle bins for them to be recycled.

With the 3"R"s practised all the time in Singapore, we will be marching towards a cleaner Singapore rid of air pollution and less global warming.

You're 13? What's your bust size?

To find out whether men prowl Internet chatrooms and lure young girls into meeting them for sex, Straits Times reporter Cheryl Tan posed as a 13 year-old schoolgirl and received one indecent proposal after another. Even though she made it clear that she was merely 13, that did not deter the men from asking indecent questions such as "What's your vital statistics?" or making offers to meet up at hotels. Only 10 men dropped out of the conversations after knowing that the person they were talking to was a minor.

These men did not seem worried that, under the law, it is illegal to have sex with a girl under the age of 16. The punishment, according to Singapore law, for statutory rape is severe - the culprit will be jailed at least eight years and given a minimum 12 strokes of the cane. Despite this, the number of men reported to the police for having sex with underage girls has shot up over the last six years. Last year, the police received 217 reports of men who had sex with underage girls, almost double the 114 cases in 2001 and just last month, three men aged between 18 and 23 were in court for having sex with a minor. The girl was only 12.

This is a worrying trend, especially when number of cases seem to be doubling every few years. It is absolutely important to curb this problem before our societal and moral values get drowned in the tide of such promiscuous activities.

I suggest a three-pronged approach to solve this problem. Education, counselling and incapacitation.

Education. The government should enforce the civics and moral education curriculum in schools, making it a more substantial lesson instead of just a minor one when commpared to content-based subjects. Its importance should be highlighted and emphasised to the students. For example, issues such as morality as well as chastity should be properly discussed and teachers should provide the correct example for students to follow. As such, students will understand that it is not morally right to engage in any underage sexual activities, and that such actions will have serious repurcussions and dire consequences.

Counselling. This works for both the minors as well as the adults. Counselling help counsellors understand their rationale for engaging in such activities and when there is a wrong mindset, it can be rectified in time before they become chronic offenders. For example, many adults feel that there is nothing wrong with engaging in sexual activities with minors and vice versa. This mindset can be changed when counsellors explain to them the punishment for their actions as well as unwanted consequences such as pregnancy and STDs.

Lastly, incapacitation. This is for chronic offenders who simply cannot get a hold of their actions and thus will repeat their offence if not put on leash. It will thus be best for them to be stashed in some rehabilitation centres or prison to protect both them and the society. Currently, the law may be a little to lax on such offenders. It would be better for these offenders to be locked away for a longer period of time.

If these 3 structures are in place, I believe that number of cases of statutory rape will fall dramatically, and societal and moral values will not be lost among the people after all.