A SECONDARY school teacher has been warned and counselled for calling one of his students a racially offensive name.

The boy, 13, is now in another school.

We are not naming him or his school to protect his identity.

His mother, a 42-year-old part-time cashier, was upset with the teacher's lack of sensitivity.

She said: 'Who is he to call my son names? Shouldn't a teacher be setting a good example for his students?

'Also, what's the point of him wearing a name tag on his uniform if the teacher decides to label him with an offensive nickname? Isn't the name tag redundant then?'

She said she had given the school a day to apologise to her son after the incident happened on 26 Mar.

She also hoped that the school would discipline the teacher and educate its students.

However, the school did not speak to her son the next day so she approached the Ministry of Education (MOE) instead.

She said: 'If they had taken the chance to persuade him to stay in the school, we might have given it another shot, but they failed to talk to him immediately.'

She said the school does not offer her son's mother tongue as a second language so there are few pupils of their ethnic group studying there.

In fact, her son was the only one of his ethnic group in his class.

Hoping to nip the problem in the bud, she requested for her son to be transferred to a school which offers the mother tongue as a second language - and where students are exposed to more racially diverse class dynamics.

He was already developing a 'phobia' of going to school, she added.

His school's principal acceded to her request in early April.

DOING MUCH BETTER

Now the boy is studying at a secondary school in the north-east of Singapore, where he is doing 'much better', his mother said.

She added: 'He has more friends in his new school and relations are definitely much healthier there. He is happy because no one teases him.'

His former school said in a statement to the press that it had been a slip of the tongue on the part of the teacher and he had not meant to insult the boy.

The teacher later apologised to the boy and his mother for the remark he made.

The school also apologised to the mother. It said that it had shared with her that the teacher had been counselled and given a warning.

Said the principal: 'I subsequently spoke with the students in the boy's class and emphasised the importance of respect for one another.'

The mother, a supermarket cashier, said she also asked the school for monetary compensation for the days she had to take unpaid leave to settle the incident.

She claimed she had to borrow a substantial amount of money from a friend to pay for her son's new books and school uniform.

The principal said she has told the mother the school will liaise with the boy's new school for financial assistance if the family has difficulties coping financially. But, she added, the mother has not asked for financial help so far.

The mother said the incident had affected his son's grades.

She explained that the boy, who is in the Normal Technical stream, has never excelled in his studies and his grades slipped further after the incident.

'It was more than a 20-mark drop for his mathematics mid-year examinations. He failed it badly this time as compared to the tests he took earlier this year where he would do okay and sometimes even scrape through,' the mother said.

'It was a transitional period for him and he didn't do as well as he could have.'

An MOE spokesman said in an e-mail statement that teachers are expected to conduct themselves in a manner which upholds the integrity of the profession.

The ministry supports the school's handling of the case and its advice to the teacher, which is consistent with its stance.

- Melody Zaccheus, newsroom intern

This article was first published in The New Paper on May 19, 2008.