GOVERNMENT CHINESE SECONDARY IV EXAMINATION (Agitators stopping students from going to examination)

[Mr SPEAKER in the Chair]

2.31 p.m.

Mrs Seow Peck Leng: (by Private Notice under Standing Order No. 18 (1) asked the Minister for Education (i) whether he is aware that there are agitators in buses stopping students from going to the examination; and (ii) what steps the Government proposes to take or is taking to prevent this.

Mr Yong Nyuk Lin: Mr Speaker, Sir, I wish to state that the Government is fully aware of political agitators stopping students from going to the examinations. These agitators were working in buses and at bus stops. Political agitators covering Yock Eng High School were posted at the bus stop in front of Happy World, and political agitators covering Chung Cheng High School were posted at the Keppel Bus terminus, near the Tanjong Pagar police station.

As regards the steps which Government should take, as I already stated yesterday, parents should accompany their children to and from examination centres.

Parents of those misinformed children who joined the picket lines would do well to assert their authority as parents by going to the picket lines and taking them home.

It is not the Government's intention to give the Communists the excuse to say that the police are manhandling students, unless it is to come to the aid of students against violence, because such students refuse to be so intimidated.

I wish to add that, despite intensive picketing today with human chains, blocking up all gates of examination centres with coconut trunks, and bicycles being used to barricade entrances, about 1,500 students are carrying on with the Government Secondary IV Examination for the second successive day.

Mrs Seow Peck Leng (Mountbatten) rose -

Mr Speaker: Mrs Seow, a supplementary question?

Mrs Seow Peck Leng: Supplementary, Sir. Mr Speaker, Sir, I wonder whether the Minister would consider taking this suggestion as a first immediate step, because I notice the Minister said that about 1,500 are taking the examination, which means that over 1,000 are not taking the examination. I have been told by members of the public that -

Mr Speaker: Order. Will the hon. Member come to her supplementary question?

Mrs Seow Peck Leng: Would the Minister take the first immediate step to inform students through the radio, Rediffusion and other means available to Government, that it is permissible and advisable for them to go to the examination without their uniforms, as this is the way in which all the students are recognised by agitators?

The Prime Minister (Mr Lee Kuan Yew): Democratic methods!

Mr Yong Nyuk Lin: Mr Speaker, Sir, I think it is a little difficult to insist upon the wearing of uniform as a requirement for an examination.

Mrs Seow Peck Leng: On a point of information.

Mr Speaker: If the Minister gives way.

Mr Yong Nyuk Lin: I thought the Member for Mountbatten was suggesting that students should be informed that they could go to examination centres with or without uniforms -

Mrs Seow Peck Leng: Without uniforms, because they are recognised by their uniforms.

Mr Yong Nyuk Lin: As I have said, we should not make it so that to take an examination, you should be wearing a school uniform. I think it should be left to them whether they wear or do not wear uniforms.

I think, Sir, if we are to survive as a democratic State, we should be prepared to stand on our two hind legs and say, "Boo!" to intimidation -

Some hon. Members: Hear, hear!

Mr Yong Nyuk Lin: - as we do to secret society gangsters. Unless we are prepared to fight for our rights, there is very little that a democratic government can do.

Mr David Marshall (Anson): Mr Speaker, Sir, may I ask the Minister whether there have been any incidents of violence or force used by agitators to date?

Mr Yong Nyuk Lin: I am pleased to say, Sir, that up to this moment, there has been no report of any violence whatsoever nor mishap. In fact, many picketers were having handkerchiefs across the bottom half of their faces and they were shivering in fright.

Tun Lim Yew Hock (Cairnhill): Sir, can the Minister say whether the agitation that is now taking place is following the same pattern as the agitation that took place during the time of the previous Government?

Mr Speaker: That is a completely different question.

Mrs Seow Peck Leng: Mr Speaker, Sir, I wonder whether the Minister would do for those who were not able to take their examination today, what he did for those who were not able to take their examination yesterday, that means, give them a substitute examination paper to take?

Mr Yong Nyuk Lin: If it is true that they were prevented through sheer intimidation from taking the paper today, the Ministry will be pleased to prepare a substitute paper for those students who did not turn up for the examination today, as it did yesterday.

Mrs Seow Peck Leng: Thank you.