Outcry over the definition of IJ girls.

Letters pertaining to this "tongue-in-cheek" definition have been published in the newspapers recently. I too, have my own view on this, being a former IJ girl. I was educated in my alma mater for 10 years.

I do acknowledge the roles it has played in my fluency in English as well as in my character -building process. 'Simple in Virtue, Steadfast in Duty', which IJ girl isn't familiar with this school motto of hers? At least 11 IJ schools adopt this value system. It's no wonder that there are former girls provoked by Life's definition! I believe Sumiko Tan is a former IJ girl and happened to be from my secondary school. She writes for Life too. I also know of another employee in SPH who was from an IJ school. How would they take this?

The writer could have been more sensitive to us, I feel. The "tongue-in-cheek" insertion is not an adequate excuse for his offensive words. The fact that there are members of parliament and even religious sisters, who are former IJ girls, proves his label wrong beyond the shadow of a doubt. He has offended personal sensitivities in the political and religious arenas. He has insulted our dignity, identity and the values imbued in us by our founder Father Nicholas Barre.

However, from an objective point of view, the black sheep amongst the IJ girls have given us a bad reputation and caused the public to have such a stereotype towards us. I remember this particular event during my secondary school days. Some of our girls behaved indecently with some boys from the neighbouring school at a fast-food restaurant, causing all of us to be banned from that outlet. They were in their school uniforms, mind you!

That was an unjust act towards the majority of the cohort but we should blame the few girls for being inconsiderate and sullying our school's name in the first place. Hence the public has given us such a misnomer as being "easy with the opposite sex".

The "allure" of 'branded' schools

Parents seem to think that putting their children in such schools will enable the kids to find a good job when they start working, according to this article written by Divya Sangameshwar. That's clearly a misconception. Employers look for on-the-job performance and attitude besides just one's academic qualifications, what more the schools one went to. To be blatant, that's a naive perception to have.

Divya is correct in her opinion that some parents expect the teachers to take over their parenting while their kids are with the teachers. Yes, the parents may be working and thus have less time to spend with their kids in the day but that's no excuse for them to shirk their duty. It's really quite annoying because the teachers have other students to handle, aren't related to the kids and don't see the kids as often as their parents who live in the same house do.