By Veena Bharwani

THEY have to cope with the death of two schoolmates.

On top of that, these students of Tampines Secondary School also have to prepare for the O-level preliminary exams.

But the school is going all out to help them get over the shocking deaths of Sia Chan Hong and Ku Witaya.

To begin with, the school has postponed the O-level pure biology preliminary exam, which was originally scheduled two days ago.

Now, the students will take the paper on Monday, 8 Sep, when the school reopens after the semestral holidays.

The two 16-year-old Tampines Secondary students are believed to have fallen to their deaths.

They were found at the foot of Block 667, Jalan Damai, off Bedok Reservoir Road on Saturday morning.

Chan Hong, a Secondary 4 Express student, was an ambitious boy who wanted to go to university.

Witaya was a Normal Academic student who was repeating Secondary 3.

Both were on the school's basketball team.

The duo, who are believed to have kept journals, had written words like 'goodbye' and 'last day' in what appeared to be final entries.

The diaries were found outside Witaya's flat on the ninth storey of the block.

While questions are being asked about what exactly happened, principal Neo Tick Watt said the school's main focus now is on helping students move on and sit for exams with minimal disruption.

'I told the students during morning assembly that life must go on and they had to be brave,' he said.

He added that all teachers are joining in the effort to help affected students.

Mr Neo said that on Sunday, he had a meeting with several teachers and counsellors to put in place a strategy to help the students.

'When we attended the funeral, the teachers kept an eye on the boys who were there, and later on, counsellors spent time with them to make sure they are coping.'

He added: 'Teachers and school counsellors also spent time talking to the boys from the basketball team, as Chan Hong was a popular kid.'

Police investigating

On the possibility that there was the influence of a computer game, Mr Neo said: 'The police are still investigating the matter. The Internet and Internet games are very big with our youth now and if it is a factor, we will look into necessary programmes to help the students.'

Chan Hong's diary mentions the word 'SLF', which might be an abbreviation for a multi-media computer game. A check online revealed that there is an Internet community that follows the game.

The word 'slayer' also appears in both their diaries.

However, gamers and distributors of computer games say the link is tenuous.

The vice-president of marketing and strategy of game distributor Infocomm Asia Holdings, Mr Yeo Yeok Chuan, said it is unfair to blame gaming when very little information is available on the boys' deaths.

'The word SLF can refer to anything. Similarly, the word slayer could be from a movie. You can't immediately conclude it's related to gaming.'

Adding an analogy, he said: 'When you have a jogger who suddenly drops dead, you can't immediately blame it on jogging. There can be other factors that might have contributed to his death.'

Avid gamer says

The team manager of the Singapore Championship Gaming Series, Mr Aaron Aw, 28, agreed and added: 'I am an avid gamer and I spend eight hours a day on gaming and I have played games for the past 15 years. But this doesn't mean I have violent tendencies.

'For most gamers, gaming is a kind of stress-reliever and gamers know it is not a real world. Some individuals cope better with certain situations and would not resort to actions that harm themselves or others. Others, however, may not cope so well.'

This article was first published in The New Paper on Aug 27, 2008.