Nanyang Technological University Students Leaps to His Death

I believe that all, if not most of you have read about or heard the incident of the NTU student plunging to an untimely death after stabbing Associate Professor Chan Kap Luk. He had stabbed the professor and slit his wrists thereafter, before commiting suicide. It is widely speculated that the 21—year—old Indonesian student, David Hartanto Widjaja, resorted to such a desperate act as his scholarship application had been canceled last month. His family and fellow Indonesian schoolmates alike had been shocked as they are both extremely close to the deceased. This incident has left them nothing short of emotionally distraught. Such is the seriousness of the matter that NTU has to facilitate counselling for some of them.

Reflections

From David's point of view, he might have thought that he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. His only hope of studying in Singapore had diminished. Unable to face up to reality, he reacted by cowardly jumping to his death. This might also have been caused by him feeling that he had disgraced his family and had not been able to live up to their expectations of him.

Furthermore, I feel that this incident will put Nanyang Technological University in a bad light as they did not respond quickly enough after noticing that David was not his usual self and showed tell-tale signs of suicide and did something about it, like counseling him, as stated in the article.
Additionally, this incident will also cause much emotional distress and pain to David's parents as they will feel that they are responsible for his death for not taking enough care of him and not giving him much concern.

However, I can also infer from the article I read that Singapore schools are generally well-equipped with the resources needed to combat any form of problem. This can be inferred from the school's speedy response of counseling the students who are traumatized by the incident. It was extremely efficient and well prepared for such emergencies. As such, I think that this reflects well on the school. The Ministry of Education also deserves a word of praise as they are responsible for this.

I feel that the main issue here is that the stress from the high pressured education system of Singapore as far too much for students to handle. Singapore's education system is highly competitive as from young , Singaporeans are trained to be, so to speak,'kiasu', which means that they must succeed in everything they do. For them, failure is unacceptable. and not a possible alternative. David was influenced by this mindset, hence, when he failed to succeed by losing his scholarship, he could not face the music and plunged to his death.