UPDATE (2.35pm): Raffles Institution told MS News that they are “disappointed” with the “irresponsible behaviour” of 3 of their students. Stressing that the school will never condone such actions, strict disciplinary action will be taken against them.
The students will also be sent to counselling on the “severity and insensitivity” of their acts. RI added that all 3 have expressed remorse over the issue. Their parents have also been informed.
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By now, you may have seen the clip of boys in Raffles Institution (RI) attire flushing a $50 note down the toilet and throwing another one from a building.
If you haven’t, you can watch it here. But be warned, it may be distressing to watch for those struggling to make ends meet.
In the clip, the boys can be seen flinging a $50 note off the ledge of a building.
As it lands on the ledge below, the caption says, “whoops”.
More distressingly, the clip also shows a boy dropping a $50 note into a toilet bowl.
The caption reads, “our toilet paper” and seemingly rudely referring to the cash.
He then flushes the toilet bowl, and the note with it. It’s unclear whether it survived.
The camera then pans to at least 2 of the boys, one of whom flashes a “V” sign at the camera.
The clip was uploaded to Instagram Stories.
Netizens have been unsurprisingly dismayed by the actions of the boys in the clip, with most denouncing the waste of money that could be used by those in need, and of disrespecting Singapore currency.
As with all hot-button issues in Singapore, a discussion was started in Reddit, kicked off by a rant from a self-identified Institute of Technical Education (ITE) student, who scolded the boys for trivialising the value of a $50 bill and “disrespecting the Singapore currency”.
He pointed out that $50 isn’t a small amount to many people, and if they didn’t want the money they could have donated it to the needy instead of wasting it for attention-grabbing purposes.
This view on the value of money was echoed by other netizens too.
A netizen who identified himself as from RI revealed that about $600 was involved in total – that’s the same amount as the Solidarity Budget payout given by the Government to Singaporeans in April.
The OP also brought up how this incident had revealed a faultline in Singapore society.
While he said that being from the ITE, he has always admired students from RI and thought those from ITE would never match up to them, this incident as well as the recent “blackface” incident has taught him that RI students are “humans like us”.
Far from being perfect, they’re actually “over-glorified” by a society that’s obsessed with grades and status, he added.
And he feels that it’s unfair for ITE students to be “cast in a negative light” compared with students from RI.
Another netizen gave an example of this stereotyping when he related how being from a “low-tier” junior college (JC), some of his schoolmates were laughed at by those from RI when they took part in the Singapore Youth Festival.
Picking up on that, a commenter said it’s sad that there’s a divide between students from “elite schools” and those who aren’t — he feels that actually they are more similar than one might think, as there are low-income students from RI too.
One such student weighed in, expressing his sadness that the boys’ actions did not take into consideration their own schoolmates who are from low-income families.
Pretty soon, other RI students who also aren’t well-off chimed in as well, expressing displeasure at the boys’ actions and concern over the reputation of the school.
One said he actually witnessed the boy throwing money off the ledge, adding that RI students make mistakes just like everybody else.
Ultimately, most netizens agreed that every school had its bad hats, and as RI is no exception.
On the other hand, there are also students from “elite schools” who are good eggs, just like in any other school.
Which comes back neatly to the point that perhaps society shouldn’t be thinking these youngsters from “elite schools” are somehow better than the rest when they can be immature and foolish just like youngsters from anywhere else can be.
Thus, a netizen who identified himself as an RI alumnus emphasised that students from RI and other such schools “are not untouchable perfect entities” and society shouldn’t be putting them on a pedestal.
One reason is because it creates undue stress for the students themselves, who might feel like failures if they don’t live up to such lofty expectations.
If we can learn something from these 2 unfortunate recent incidents of students behaving insensitively, it’s that youngsters everywhere will make mistakes, and we shouldn’t be looking up to certain students just because of the school they go to, or conversely looking down on other students because of where they study.
And please don’t overgeneralise and say that all students from certain schools are a certain way, either.
While the students in the clip should be disciplined and counselled for their behaviour, every student is different, and their actions aren’t representative of an entire school.
We should also reflect upon ourselves as a society — in our quest for status and glory, we seem to have created an elitist mindset and unfair divisions among young students that may undermine Singapore’s unity.
Featured images adapted from Twitter.
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