From Syerleena Abdul Rashid

Each act of violence in schools should shake us to the core. These are not simply “incidents”. They are mirrors, held up to our collective failure as parents, educators, policymakers, and a society that has slowly forgotten how to listen.

Calls for a nationwide school safety audit are both urgent and necessary. As highlighted recently in FMT, our classrooms are no longer immune from the pressures and dangers of the outside world.

From bullying to fights, to the unimaginable tragedy of a stabbing, the sanctuary that schools once represented is under strain. A proper safety audit, to review infrastructure, security procedures, counselling access, and crisis protocols, would be a practical step forward.

But if we stop at that, we are only treating the surface wound. Blaming schools is easy; fixing society is hard.

The truth is our youth are growing up in an emotional vacuum. Many of them spend more time interacting with screens than with family members. They live half their lives online, absorbing endless streams of content – much of it aggressive, cynical, or demeaning – often without supervision.

What they consume shapes how they speak, think, and even feel. The algorithms reward outrage, not empathy. And while parents may think that their children are safe at home, mentally these children are already adrift in a world that rarely teaches kindness.

We must also talk about how we raise our boys. Too many have learnt distorted ideas about masculinity and power from influencers who mistake aggression for confidence and disrespect for charm. Society has normalised personalities like Bonnie Blue – figures who preach a version of “empowerment” that prizes attention over accountability.

Boys absorb these cues long before they develop critical judgment. We need to teach them early what respect for girls and women truly means: that “no” is not negotiable, that kindness is strength, and that equality is not a threat to their identity but a measure of their maturity.

Teachers are trying their best, but they cannot parent 30 or 40 students at once. Nor can we expect them to be counsellors, mentors, and law enforcers all at the same time. Many educators are overwhelmed, exhausted, and operating within a system stretched to its limits. When violence erupts, it is unfair and intellectually lazy to turn all eyes on them.

The real problem lies in a wider breakdown of connection. Parents and children speak less. Communities have grown more fragmented. Our public conversations, both online and off, have become combative and performative. Somewhere along the way, we stopped teaching our young the simplest lessons: respect, empathy, and responsibility.

When children lash out, it is not only anger that we are seeing. It is pain – unaddressed, unacknowledged pain. When they are ignored, punished without understanding, or left to drown in online noise, that pain curdles into rage. A violent act is often a cry for attention that no one answered in time.

This is why a conversation about school safety must include the emotional safety of our youth. Each audit checklist should look not only at locks, fences, or CCTV cameras, but also at whether schools have accessible counsellors, peer support programmes, and a culture that allows students to speak without fear.

At home, we must rediscover the art of listening. It sounds simple, but it is revolutionary. To listen is to tell a child that they matter, that their feelings are valid, that they are seen. Respect begins there.

Policymakers can design frameworks and ministries can issue circulars, but none of it will work if we continue to treat children as problems to be managed rather than people to be understood. The heart of reform is not in enforcement, but in empathy.

We need a cultural shift that makes compassion a national value again – one that transcends politics, class, and background. Safety in schools must begin with safety at homes: safety in conversation, and safety in knowing that mistakes are met with guidance, not ridicule.

If we want to stop the next tragedy, we must look beyond the school gates. The audit we truly need is a moral one: how do we treat each other, and what kind of world are we building for our children?

Until we answer that honestly, no number of cameras or security drills will keep our schools safe. Because the violence we see inside them is merely an echo of the silence we have allowed to grow outside.

Syerleena Abdul Rashid is the MP for Bukit Bendera.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.