In an email to the whole university, the Student Affairs Office said:

Communication being a mere click away these days, we believe it would be helpful to remind ourselves from time to time to exercise our freedom of expression responsibly and within the ambit of the law. For this purpose, we forward the attached document for your attention.

The guidelines attached in the email are as follows:

The email has since caught the mainstream media’s attention.

ST: Foreign Students Blacklisted

ST: NTU warns students

ST: NTU issues net guidelines

CNA: NTU’s blogging rule raises eyebrows

The university sent the email five days after the Temasek Review published a story on an academic blacklist that surfaced on the blog, Liberating Truth.

It is not known if the email and the blacklist incident are related. However, the closeness in timing between the two has led many students to speculate that NTU has sent the circular in reaction to the academic blacklist.

NTU has not confirmed the speculations. In a report by the Straits Times, Associate Professor Lok Tat Seng, dean of students at NTU said that the guidelines were released as part of a regular annual excerise.

He also added that “guidelines apply more to faculty members”.

Read an analysis by Terence Lee regarding the guidelines

Integration of Singaporeans and new immigrants will require more than just the National Integration Council alone, members of the audience said after the ministerial forum.

Though most of the audience interviewed were positive about the role of the council in fostering integration, some remained skeptical about the extent to which the council alone can effect changes in social and cultural integration.

Mr Pang Li Jian, alumnus from NTU Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, said forming such an organisation will lead to integration but it will not be significant.

“It is hard to teach old dogs new tricks,” the Singaporean added, expressing his concerns regarding the inflexible views of the local elderly towards foreigners.

Final year Communication Studies student Ms Toh Lee Hoon also shared the same view. “The general sense I get from hawker talks especially with the elder folk is that they view foreign workers as rivals, instead of ‘team members’,” she said. “They do not see the reasons behind the influx of foreign workers.”

During the forum, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke at length about the issue of integration and the coming initiatives of the council as one of the government’s “greater efforts at fostering integration.”

The council, set up in April 2009, comprised members from the public and private sector, as well as the community. Its goal will be to ‘drive the integration agenda forward through a concerted effort’ according to Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng earlier this year.

The Straits Times reported in February that 20,513 foreigners took up citizenship while a further 79,167 took up permanent residency last year – an increase from 17,334 who took up citizenship and 63,627 who became PRs in 2007.

In addition, the paper also reported of a $10 million fund that organisations can tap for projects to help immigrants and Singaporeans to get to know each other better.

As integration becomes a pressing issue, many whom the Enquirer spoke to gave suggestions to make integration more effective.

“The initiative will be more effective if it targets the younger segment of the society,” said Mr Pang. He believes that children, when imparted with a strong acceptance towards foreign friends and cultures since young, will grow up and continue this drive of social integration to their children as well.

Meanwhile Mr Goh Wei Han, a doctoral candidate in Computer Engineering believes that the desire to integrate has to come from within, local and foreigner alike. “Internally, they must want to open up and mingle with one another,” the Malaysian said.

“All parties must understand the importance of cultural integration and are willing to work together towards achieving it,” said final year Business student Mr Hindri Susanto. The Indonesian added that the government would need cooperation from both Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans.

The reality for transient foreign workers is this: When times are good, you are hired to work in Singapore to help build this cosmopolitan city. When times are bad, expect to be the first to be sent packing.

This was revealed by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during the ministerial forum where the government’s stand on the role of transient foreign workers was spelled out in no uncertain terms.

According to PM Lee, in wake of one of the toughest crises experienced by Singapore to date, transient foreign workers bore the brunt of the severe job losses in the first half of 2009.

“And why did it happen? Because the impact was absorbed by the foreign workers and the shrinkage in the work force was taken up by the foreign workers,” he said, “and we have 20,000 foreign workers net; (some) lost their jobs, left, gone away, and they have absorbed and buffered us from the impact.”

Currently, transient workers, employed solely for work purposes, comprise slightly more than half of close to a million foreigners working in Singapore, with more than 100,000 foreigners introduced to the labour force annually in recent years.

Meanwhile, during this same six-month period of crisis this year, PM Lee revealed a little known fact that the number of Singaporeans employed has gone up – with a net employment gain of about 7000.

However, he stressed that this policy of hire-and-fire affects transient workers in particular as they are foreigners hired specifically for work in sectors that Singaporeans typically shun.

And he added these are the workers who not here in Singapore as long-term immigrants because transient workers are solely hired to work and do not settle here for the long run as citizens or as permanent residents.

“More than half of our non-citizens are in fact foreign workers like this. They are here temporarily as long as the economy needs them,” PM Lee said.

“Most of them are transient foreign workers, here to work, not to strike roots,” he said.

Not only do such foreigners serve as a buffer during slumps, their resources can be tapped during periods of economic boom to develop Singapore into a vibrant and economically robust city comparable to New York and Shanghai, he said.

However, Singapore’s casual approach towards employing and dispensing of foreign labour is unsettling.

Mr Roy Wu, a third-year Electrical and Electronic Engineering major at NTU feels such a move would appear to take the efforts of foreigners lightly.

Regarding transient foreign workers absorbing the impact of the weakened economy, Mr Wu said, “As a foreigner, I would feel insecure and feel quite discriminated.”

“Foreigners are a buffer in the work force and used for growing the economy,” he said. “They come to work and when the economy is not good, they are asked leave.”

But others feel that the casual treatment of foreign workers is just one issue among many others.

Ms Felicia Liu, a recent graduate from the National University of Singapore, said the issues faced by foreign workers are triple-fold. Many of them not only rely on a strong economy to find employment but are also subjected to fierce competition among themselves and realise that they are not welcomed the moment there is a downturn.

Ms Liu, who is Singaporean, said, “Foreigners become dispensable goods to us. It is a tough reality for them and it makes some Singaporeans uneasy about how we can commoditise labour this way.”

However, Ms Eveline Danubrata, a final year student from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information said transient workers face tough circumstances whether they are working in Singapore or in other countries that employ them.

And this situation is not about to change.

Ms Danubrata, who has studied in Singapore for nine years and received her Permanent Resident status in 2007, said, “Foreign workers who go to another country to work, in Singapore or overseas, face the same kind of competition so it is not very different.”

Most NTU students are against the idea of a name change from ‘Nanyang Technological University’ to ‘Nanyang University’ according to a straw poll.

The poll indicated that 66% of 150 respondents said no to the suggestion of a change in the name of the university. Engineering students made up close to two-thirds of those against renaming the university.

In 2003, NTU led by President Su Guaning, aimed towards changing the university’s name to Nanyang University by 2005. However, in 2004, this plan was shelved.

According to a Straits Times article dated July 2004, President Su said this change will only take place once NTU becomes a full-fledged comprehensive university.

In response to the poll, many expressed the change as impractical and strange.

Ms Lee Wei Ting, a second-year Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) student, said: “NTU is already a global name. Having the name changed means we have to inform the world all over again.”

“NU sounds strange,” first-year Economics major Mr Seng Yuan Gan said. He is not alone as Mr Lim Kuan Chien, majoring in Biological Engineering, feels that the acronym for the university must have three letters. “If not, it won’t sound nice,” the 20-year-old said.

Another concern was the identity of the old Nanyang University.

Mr Shang Yun Zhou, a second-year EEE major from China felt that NTU is different from the Nanyang University of the past as it was a mandarin-speaking university.

In addition, business student Sim Yihui expressed her concern that Nantah alumni will be unhappy if NTU were to change its name to Nanyang University.

“I read in the Straits Times before that a lot of the Nantah alumni do not see NTU as a continuation of Nantah,” the 21-year-old said.

Meanwhile, the remaining third of the total respondents warmed to the idea of a name change for several reasons. One factor was the presence of schools outside the technological field.

Second-year Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering student Mr Kevin Koh believes that having a strong business school is a good reason for renaming the university better known for its engineering schools.

“…because of the stereotypical thinking of the word technological, my UK friend asked why is an arts school doing in a technological university?” 19-year-old School of Art, Design and Media student Ms Jane Koh said.

Besides the renaming of the university, the poll also asked students if Nantah was part of NTU. Nanyang University then, in the 1950s up till 1980, was commonly known as Nantah.

About 43% of the respondents were unsure about Nantah and its history relating to NTU. The remaining students were divided in their opinions over Nantah.

Second-year EEE major Ms Wong Yan Nan from China feels that although Nantah is part of NTU, it is now history. “It’s just a name and it does not matter,” she said.

However, there are others like final-year EEE student Mr Kheu Zong Jie who is certain that Nantah is part of NTU. “Monuments at Yunnan Garden are a big reminder of the Nantah Spirit,” he said.

Mr Allen Lee, an environmental engineering major and member of the NTU Basketball team, shared with the Enquirer the sense of encouragement felt at his games when the “old boys — really old, with white hair — come down to cheer on the NTU Basketball team”.

“That’s probably the Nantah spirit,” the 23-year-old said.

Additional reporting by Zakaria Zainal, Chong Zi Liang, David Pang, Elaine Ng, Lin An Chyi & Lin Junjie

A final-year student allegedly stabbed his project supervisor in the office before jumping to his own death from a seven-storey building in NTU Monday morning.

The deceased student, identified as David Hartanto Widjaja, and was pronounced dead on the spot.

The injured don, Associate Professor Chan Kap Luk, suffered stab wounds on his back and arm and was rushed to the National University Hospital, where he went through some two hours of surgery.

There were no injury to his main arteries or organs, according to an email by the university’s president, Su Guaning, late Monday night.

In an earlier email to all staff and students, President Su promised a thorough investigation of the incident.

He wrote that the student “fell off the linkway” and died after he attacked the professor.

The university did not release the names of the deceased student and the victim until it had met with the parents of the deceased student “out of respect for the parents”.

Read more at the Straits Times.

National University of Singapore (NUS)—The government should do more to address the concerns of ordinary Singaporeans in the face of globalisation, members of the audience said after the Kent Ridge Ministerial forum.

Many whom the Enquirer spoke to felt the topic of the forum—titled “Globalisation: threat or opportunity for the ordinary Singaporean?”—was not addressed adequately.

Mr Vincent Hong, 24, a mechnical engineering student from NUS, said the minister focused too much on the big picture of globalisation, but neglected the concerns of ordinary Singaporeans and how the government should address the problems caused by globalisation.

“We know the start and the end, but not the middle,” he said, adding that “everyday realities” are something Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, the speaker at the forum, did not address enough.

Another mechanical engineering student, Mr Nelson Ng, said: “We can’t deny there are threats, but we must tackle the issues collectively,” said the 22-year-old. “The government can certainly do more. The education system, for example, isn’t catering to globalisation.”

Mr Kumara Pandian, 32, an engineer, was more concerned about the social issues of globalisation, such as how rooted Singaporeans are even when they work abroad.

“The point is not whether there is opportunity or threat,” he said, “but whether Singaporeans [overseas] are connected to their homeland.”

Throughout his speech, Dr Balakrishnan stressed that globalisation is not something Singaporeans can opt out of despite threats of racial division, class warfare, and the risk of making Singapore irrelevant in the world today.

Held on Friday evening in the National University of Singapore, the forum attracted an audience of 300.

Even though the forum was a let down for some, others felt they benefited from Dr Balakrishnan’s words.

In particular, the minister’s explanation of the importance of Singaporeans’ work ethics changed how Indian national, Ms Valli, 27, viewed the country.

Living in Singapore for the last three years, Ms Valli said she used to think life here was unnecessarily stressful. Her opinion changed when Dr Vivian explained that the nation’s success hinges on the diligence of its people.

“Now I understand the purpose of this, I think Singaporeans should thank their country,” said the engineer. “If you are able to work here, you can survive in any other parts of the world.”

National University of Singapore (NUS)—A widening of the rich-poor gap will be one of the key concerns for Singapore as it embraces globalisation, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said.

This is because globalisation—which is inevitable in Singapore—will benefit those who possess skills while sidelining those without, the minister for community, youth and sports said Friday evening.

Terming the issue “class warfare”, he said: “One of the economic outcomes of globalisation is that if you’re smart, hardworking, creative, and connected to the high-value networks of the world, your income will be stratospheric.

“If you’re not skilled, if the skills you have are irrelevant because things can be done by a robot or someone else in another country very cheaply, there’s downward pressure on your wages.”

Indeed, income inequality may have already reared its ugly head in Singapore. A February report by the Department of Statistics found that while the household income of the average family rose 9.6% last year, the wage increase was skewed in favour of richer families.

Figures showed that income per family member in the top 10% income bracket jumped 11.1%, compared with only 3.3% for families in the lowest 10% income bracket.

Dr Balakrishnan was speaking on the topic of globalisation at the Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum organised by the NUS Students’ Political Association. The event saw a turnout of about 300 students and members of the public.

The income divide, he believes, will figure prominently on the political agenda of the government—including its tax policies—and pose a “paralysing” problem.

“No politician, except in Singapore, can win an election from raising higher taxes, and even in Singapore it’ll get harder,” he said to laughter from the audience.

“Class warfare will pose a paralysing political discourse and will probably limit the ability of politicians in the future to do the right thing, because for every policy you come up with, people will say, ‘Does this benefit me, or penalise me? Is it good for the rich, or good for the people?’”

He cited the example of the American presidential debates, where both Republican candidate John McCain and Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama sparred over who had the better plan to keep taxes low.

“Yet if you look at America, they need so much money to fix their social security, healthcare and education systems, and military adventures,” he noted. “The honest politicians in America need to stand up and say, ‘We’re all going to have to pay for these, and that means higher taxes’.”

Dr Balakrishnan also responded to a student’s question on Singapore ministers’ pay. He acknowledged that although the ministers are very well-paid, the pay scale is made transparent to everyone.

“Yes, we’re the highest paid ministers in the world, but we’re not the wealthiest,” he said, alluding to corruption that takes place in other countries.

“The system is totally transparent,” he said. “So if and when we really get to the point where the wages that are paid to civil servants and political office holders are completely off the scale, then that alone would lead to a revolt at the election.”

Correction: November 6th, 2008

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

The article misstated that slightly more than half of the students polled felt that the union had not improved their lives in the university. It should have been slightly less than half of the students polled instead. We are sorry for the error.

If the name Ng Hwei Yun does not ring a bell, you are not alone.

According to a straw poll done by the Enquirer, 93% of respondents were unable to name the new Students’ Union president.

Some students, like Mr Yu Yong Thieng, even confused the new president with the previous one.

“I only know he’s an Indian guy,” said the 20-year-old Accountancy major, referring to the 17th Students’ Union president, Mr Choudhury Anshuman Das.

Of the 100 students polled at Canteen A, B, and the Quad, slightly less than half also felt that the union had not improved their lives in the university.

Mr Victor Tan, 25-year-old Electrical and Electronic Engineering student, said: “I don’t know anything about the Students’ Union.”

But others gave the union more credit, with 26 students citing the 179A bus service, which serves NTU bus stops exclusively, as something that had improved their tertiary life.

In addition, one student was happy that the operating hours of 179A were extended by one and a half hours for a month during the start of the semester.

Responding to the poll results, Students’ Union President Ng Hwei Yun felt that students not knowing her name did not reflect the unimportance of the union as a representative body.

“After all, it’s not so much about me, it’s more about the Students’ Union as a whole,” the third-year English Literature student said.

With regard to the sentiment that the union had no impact on campus life, Miss Ng said it could be simply a matter of perception.

“Students may know there’s change but not know who’s behind that change,” the president said.

But Miss Ng said that things were moving a bit slowly for the union now as the new executive committee was formed just before recess week.

Still, she added that the pace of events would pick up and pointed to U-Study Day on October 22, when donuts, coffee and other goodies would be distributed to students as exam welfare.

The 100 students in the poll were also queried about what changes they would like to see in the university. A wide range of answers arose, with the quality of canteen food and the need for more hall rooms standing out a little more than the rest.

Other concerns surfaced as well. Miss Khairunnisa, 21, wanted to see more study areas for students. She was among the 64% who expressed confidence in the union’s ability to bring about the change they wanted.

“I think the union is quite strong so yes they should be able to do so,” the English Literature student said.

Mr Hendra Wong, a second-year Chemical and Biological Chemistry student, wanted to see more water coolers in halls.

“I have to go to a different level to get water in my hall so it’s rather inconvenient,” the 19-year-old said.

Noting the 29% who did not believe in the Students’ Union ability to lobby for change, Miss Ng appealed to students to be understanding about the limits of what the union can do.

Matters like the Hall Allocation Scheme is decided upon by a group of people, including representatives from the Junior Common Room Committees and non-constituent clubs, the president said.

As for academic matters like the possibility of exercising the Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory option after exams, it is simply harder for students to make a difference in such instances, she said.

Miss Ng has however requested that the Office of Academic Services explain the rationale of not allowing S/U after exams and was confident the office would do so.

In all, the president believed the effectiveness of the union was still high. She pointed out that the union lobbied for the deadline of declaring a subject under S/U to be pushed from the eighth to the 11th week.

And Miss Ng also assured that the channels for students who want to be heard regarding the S/U option remain open.

“If we receive strong feedback from students regarding this matter, we will definitely reflect this to the university administration,” the president said.

Additional reporting by Liew Shi Xiong, Lin Junjie and Zakaria Zainal

Singapore saw its fourth public protest on Sunday by a group of students campaigning against the censorship of two news stories in their campus media.

The protesters, three students and an alumnus from the communication school in Nanyang Technological University, made a series of speeches and urged participants to sign a petition to publish the canned article.

“We are not here to flame NTU… or to burn anyone’s effigies,” said Mr Clarence Chua, 25, one of the protesters and an alumni from the communications school.

Another protester and final-year student, Mr Scott Teng, 24, added: “We are not calling for anarchistic freedom… we are proposing responsible editorial independence.”

The other two organisers were Miss Lim Yan Wen and Mr Thaddaeus Wee, both 22.

The protest follows the university’s decision to pull out two news stories from the campus newspaper and broadcast media on a visit by the Singapore Democratic Party in September this year.

In a statement to the Today newspaper on Saturday, the university said it would not typically interfere in editorial matters of the campus media, but “in this case, there is the potential of an unsolicited visit being given publicity in furtherance of a political objective.”

The protesters said they had wanted to organise a dialogue with the university’s corporate communications office on this matter, but the office notified a professor about the request and he spoke to them instead.

“This [the protest] could all have been avoided if NTU just saw common sense,” Mr Chua said.

The speakers were quick to distance themselves from the Singapore Democratic Party leader, Dr Chee Soon Juan, in their speeches.

“I want to be very clear, this issue has nothing to do with Chee Soon Juan or Chee Soon Juan’s political affiliations,” Mr Chua said.

Mr Teng added: “But rather, [this is] about the censorship of the news, and there are many, many lessons to be learnt from this.”

Still, the protest inevitably attracted several activists and members of the Singapore Democratic Party, including Dr Chee Soon Juan and his sister, Ms Chee Siok Chin.

Another member present was assistant secretary-general of the opposition party, Mr John Tan.

He said he was pleasantly surprised that students were taking the initiative to protest against the censorship of news.

When asked if the party has plans to return to NTU, he said: “We’ll definitely be back again. We want to get in touch with students and to engage them.”

A participant asked Dr Chee Soon Juan what he felt about the university’s reason for censoring the story because his visit was uninvited, to which he replied: “The question is how do you get invited, and that is the million dollar question.”

Dr Chee also said he had written to the students’ union at both the Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore but received no reply.

The SDP had hoped to organise a political forum in NTU to discuss, among other matters, the censoring of the news reports on the party’s visit.

At the protest, conspicuously absent were members of the current editorial team at the campus newspaper and broadcast media, the Nanyang Chronicle and Nanyang Spectrum.

News editor of the Nanyang Chronicle, Ms Cheryl Ong, 21, declined a request by the organisers to speak at the protest.

“I don’t want to perpetuate the idea that the Chronicle or Spectrum is organising the event,” she said.

When asked what she thinks about the protest, Ms Ong said: “[The organisers] are very proactive even though they are not related to the Chronicle or Spectrum, as writers or as editors.

“But I don’t think the event will benefit the Chronicle or Spectrum in the long term because… the NTU administration might perceive us as antagonistic and create problems for the future editorial team.”

News editor of the Nanyang Spectrum, Mr Philip Lim, 23, similarly turned down a request to speak at the protest.

For Mr Lim, he said that the incident “has been rehashed ad nauseam” and does not wish to talk about it any more.

“This [the censorship] has not been a very pleasant experience, and I feel like I’m reliving the moment all over again by repeating the story over and over again,” Mr Lim said. “I’m very tired of this and just want to move on.”

However, Mr Lim said things would have been very different if the protesters had organised the protest in a more timely fashion, not when it has been “done and dusted”.

Billed as “The Big Hong Lim Show”, the protest almost became a gathering for journalists when only some 40 people—half of them armed with cameras, notebooks and pens—turned up by 4.30pm when the protest was due to start.

“It’s pretty small,” one journalist was overheard saying to another.

Another group of participants were overheard saying that there was not enough publicity for the event, which took place mostly on Facebook and through the Online Citizen, a website that aims to highlight issues in Singapore not covered by the mainstream press.

But by 5pm, half way through the second speaker’s speech, The Enquirer counted almost 110 people in the Speaker’s Corner at Hong Lim Park.

By the end of the event, 66 people have signed the petition asking the university’s president, Dr Su Guaning, to “reverse its decision regarding the censorship of the original article and publishing it firstly on the Chronicle website then on the next issue of the Chronicle.”

“This is good for a start,” said Mr Mohammad Khalis, 21, who attended the protest. “But I hope that this is not an one-off event or the end of it.”

But for now, the four protesters say they have no immediate plans on what they intend to do next.

The Enquirer will follow up with the university’s administration on their comments today.

Despite NTU’s best efforts to kill the story on Dr Chee Soon Juan’s visit to the campus, it simply refuses to die.

The latest twist to the saga came Tuesday morning when two students draped a black banner across a wall in the School of Communication and Information (SCI) meant for showcasing students’ photography work.

Painted on the black cloth was “no media blackout” in capital letters. Black trash bags covered the rest of the showcase. Another banner was hung nearby with a web address on it that pointed to a Facebook group protesting the censorship of news pieces on Dr Chee in the university’s press.

When quizzed about their purpose, the banner makers said they wanted raise awareness about the issue of press freedom in the campus.

“It is foolish to blackout the media especially when there is a media school in NTU,” said Mr Thaddaeus Wee, a 22-year-old student from the communication school.

The other student, Mr Scott Teng, said pulling the article that was originally meant to fill a quarter page in the student-run but university-funded newspaper went against the media school’s lectures about the role of the press to inform.

“The banner is a symbol that we media students do not take this matter lying down,” said the 23-year-old communications student.

Back in early September, controversial opposition figure Dr Chee Soon Juan had dropped by the campus on two occasions and had distributed fliers calling for students to speak up about politics and national issues.

Student reporters from the university newspaper and broadcast media, the Nanyang Chronicle and Nanyang Spectrum, covered Dr Chee’s visit and students’ reactions to it.

The stories were due to appear in September but the print article was pulled from the Chronicle just one day before publication and the broadcast news package was edited out of the news programme.

In protest, students set up Facebook groups about the muzzling of the press. Another student broke the news of the incident on the Online Citizen, a website that aims to highlight issues in Singapore not covered by the mainstream press.

More dramatically, signs deriding the university for the media blackout were placed anonymously on September 18th at the university’s entrance and the student services centre in the dead of the night. They were removed within half an hour by patrolling security guards.

This time, campus security reacted equally swiftly to the banner in SCI. Security guards were already patrolling the premises as Mr Teng and Mr Wee put up the banner.

Again within half an hour of the banners going up, additional guards had arrived on the scene, photographing the banners before taking them down.

One security guard who asked not to be named revealed that they had received a tip-off about the possibility of a protest the night before and had stepped up patrols in the media school.

When contacted about the banner protest, assistant chair of SCI, Associate Professor Lee Chun Wah, said it was understandable from “a student’s perspective to feel authority has clamped down”.

But he stressed the school was in step with the university stand on the whole issue.

“The Chronicle is a student newspaper but it does not have the right to demand what to publish,” Professor Lee said. “Ultimately the owner of the newspaper is the president of NTU.”

The chair of the school, Associate Professor Benjamin Detenber, could not be interviewed by press time.

Professor Lee also dismissed the ideals of press freedom that the banner makers were calling for.

“University is not an idealistic place. It’s an institution where we teach students in a practical manner,” he said.

As for the banner, “it was a waste of time and resources as its impact was very low,” said the promotional communication expert. He also believed that students should move on from the incident and that the situation would not escalate.

But the assistant chair just might be wrong. Mr Teng is planning a demonstration for campus media freedom at the Speakers’ Corner on Sunday. Already he has prepared a press release and plans to inform the national media.

The saga continues.