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Sunday, September 23, 2012

School counsellor helped himself to students who go to him for help

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http://www.edvantage.com.sg/edvantage/news/news/1309644/My_school_counsellor_molested_me.html

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Singapore Association for Mental Health: 1800-2837019
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She was a troubled teen who turned to her ITE counsellor, Mr Michael Tay Jau Jen, 36, for help last year.

They ended up being sexually intimate. He would later tell investigators that it was consensual.

But two weeks later, she alleged to her school that he had molested her.

About a month later, still haunted by the incident, she jumped to her death from the sixth storey of a building at ITE College East at Simei Avenue.

Of Indian ethnicity, she was adopted by her Chinese parents soon after her birth. This identity crisis bothered her.

Ka Ying also had a history of self-harm behaviour and she was admitted to Changi General Hospital in 2010 for cutting her wrists.

But the alleged molest was what drove her into depression. In an examination at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) just five days before her death, she said she had been molested by her lecturer and kept having flashbacks of the incident.

Ka Ying later told one of her friends that it happened more than once but fewer than five times.

Her friend told her to make a police report. But she refused, saying that she didn't want to escalate the matter further. She also told her friend that she was in a relationship with Mr Tay.

Eventually, on July 27, she did alert the school, alleging that Mr Tay had molested her.

He subsequently quit on Aug 8 while the investigations were going on, citing the investigation and personal family problems as reasons.

The school said they couldn't stop him from resigning before disciplinary proceedings were initiated.

On the night before her death, she texted her friend to ask what would happen if she died.

On Sept 6 at about 11am, Ka Ying poured out all her personal problems to her friend.

At 5.35pm that day, she called a female lecturer, Ms Png Tan Chen Wan, twice, but the calls went unanswered.

Ms Png sent her a text message saying that she was busy.

Ka Ying texted her back and said: "If I annoy you, please pardon me, I won't disturb you any more."

Ms Png replied: "You understand I am busy, right?" Ka Ying did not reply.

Five minutes later, she called a male lecturer, Mr Mohd Zaidi Mohd Yacob, to thank him for being her teacher. She also said that he would not see her the next day.

He told another lecturer, who then went looking for her.

A jogger spotted Ka Ying sitting on the staircase railing on the sixth storey of the ITE's School of Business and Services, with her legs dangling outside of the railing.

The jogger told a student, who alerted the ITE's course manager, Mr Parwinder Singh.

Mr Singh, who had been trained in suicide intervention, called the police and tried to get her to safety. But she told him to go away.

Just then, Ms Png appeared with another lecturer.

Ka Ying looked at her with a resigned expression, turned her head forward and jumped off the railing.

She was pronounced dead at 6.21pm.

Teacher grabbed my butt - school cheerleader
Some former students of an Institute of Technical Education (ITE), where a lecturer was accused of molest, have claimed that they, too, were touched inappropriately.

They said that Mr Michael Tay Jau Jen, 36, did this when he was in charge of the cheerleading squad at ITE College East about two to three years ago.

Improper and unacceptable
The chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Education, Mr Lim Biow Chuan, told The New Paper that what Mr Tay had done was improper and unacceptable as he had abused his position of trust.

He said: "I would strongly urge MOE to ban him from teaching in any MOE-registered institution."

Asked if Mr Tay should be allowed near teenagers or teach them, Mr Lim said: "I would be slow to condemn him without giving him a chance to defend himself.

"But if indeed he has done wrong, then I agree that he should not be allowed to teach as he is not the right role model."

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