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SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Education will continue to work closely with institutes of higher education (IHL) to “toughen processes where necessary,” Minister of State Sun Xueling said following the dismissal of the professor from the National University of Singapore (NUS ), Dr. Jeremy Fernando.
Dr. Fernando, who was a professor at Tembusu College, was recently fired by NUS after it was discovered that he had “an intimate relationship” with a college student. NUS also filed a police report.
In a Facebook post on Saturday (October 24), Ms. Sun said there had been “a lot of public discussion” about the firing.
He noted how NUS had “responded with a schedule of events and their investigations,” adding that “at a press conference yesterday, NUS also acknowledged that they could have done better in handling the matter,” he said.
“Now that a police report has been filed, we will let the police investigations run their course,” added Ms. Sun.
READ: NUS has ‘fallen short’ in handling Jeremy Fernando’s firing, says Tembusu College Chancellor Tommy Koh
LEE: The rector of NUS Tembusu College, Tommy Koh, backs down less than 2 hours after saying that he will offer to resign over the Fernando incident
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education (MOE) is following up with NUS and other universities to ensure the safety and security of students.
“A question that we have asked the university leadership: What else can they do to prevent cases like these from happening in the future?” Ms. Sun said.
He said the ministry recognizes that IHL “must give space for ideas and academic research to flourish.”
“But the issues surrounding this case lead us to wonder: How can we better protect ourselves from educators and others who cross the line, and how can we collectively strengthen campus security?
“At the end of the day, our IHL have a duty to care for their students. There must be zero tolerance on our campuses for any form of sexual misconduct, harassment or violence,” said Ms. Sun.
“On the part of the Ministry of Education, we will continue to work closely with all of our DIH to reinforce processes where necessary, to guarantee the safety of the student community at all times,” he added.
Earlier in the week, Dr. Fernando, who was a professor at Tembusu College, was fired by NUS after it was discovered that he had “an intimate relationship” with a student.
NUS also filed a police report.
On Friday, the university’s rector, Professor Tommy Koh, said that NUS had “fallen short.”
Professor Koh said: “The university can learn from the Singapore government from the way it dealt with SARS in 2003 and COVID-19 in 2020 … The policy is to be open rather than closed, to be transparent rather than opaque. , give timely information to your stakeholders rather than withhold such information.
“So using these two, three criteria, in my opinion, NUS has fallen short.”
