Operationally Ready

Summary

Nanyang Polytechnic has established a clear CEP Framework to facilitate the reporting of racial/religious incidents, Mr Thambyrajah says. For example, it conducted an exercise to test its CEP operational readiness. The scenario was the discovery of a racist remark made by a student on an NYP blog. The exercise took place in a restricted blog which is accessible only by password. What occurred during the exercise was that the Personal Mentor (PEM) of the student who found the remark alerted school-based CEP Team members. The remark was assessed to be racist, and immediate action was taken to alert the Communications Division (COMMS) to remove it. Then the CEP Team and community leaders decided on follow-up action.

If the instigator was identified as an NYP student, the team recommended counselling for the student by an NYP counsellor and an NYP community leader. If it was not possible to identify the instigator, the team recommended that NYP seek Police advice. Also, the impact of the remark on the student informant and other known students who had seen the blog remark would be assessed, and counselling would be provided if required. If the instigator was identified and the remark had been made owing to an incident related to NYP, the CEP Team would gather ground sentiments from students and staff through PEMs and student leaders. An e-mail advisory would then be issued to students on responsibility in the use of online media. COMMS and the CEP Team would scan and monitor online media for a week.

According to Mr Thambyrajah, the exercise achieved certain objectives. The PEM alerted the relevant CEP member; appropriate and immediate action was taken; the CEP Team and the relevant community leader were immediately contacted for discussions on follow-up action; the nature of the follow-up action was established and the suggestion was forwarded to the CEP Lead for approval for implementation.