Schools that forget their pupils' needs.

I have sometimes seen something very strange in Singapore. At least, it is strange for me to observe. Sometimes schools seem to forget that their pupils are human beings.

Let me explain. I am thinking of one school, in particular, in which I observed the complete absence of toilet paper in any of the student toilets. Noting that one toilet had no toilet paper, I went in search of another that did. I found none. Each toilet had a complete absence of paper of any kind.

Outside each toilet, was a toilet paper dispenser, in the form of a big paper roll. However, each roll had been entirely used up. Inside each toilet, there was no dispenser, of any kind, to be found. Thus, any student who wished to use the toilet, in that particular school, on that particular day, would have run into a problem: there was no way of going to the toilet without a serious hygience crisis.

Curious about whether this problem extended to the staff facilities, I checked: they were fully equipped with an entire roll of toilet paper. Thus, it seems that someone at the school is taking care of the staff needs, but not those of the students. This just doesn't seem right.

A school which neglects its students in their basic needs, probably neglects their needs in other ways too. It is a clear sign that the school, as an organization, are not thinking of their students' well-being.

I can only imagine the embarrassing situations that pupils at that school run into when it comes to a simple matter like going to the toilet. It is actually rather unsettling, to think of their distress.

Every school should take care of their students - starting with their basic needs. That they don't is a clear testament that not all is right in the Singaporean education system.

By the way, it is not just this one school that has shown this characteristic: others have too...it is just that in those other cases, I never thought to check on whether the staff toilets suffered in the same way - so I didn't gather full information. Either way, there was no toilet paper available for the students in some other schools, too.

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