He had stopped his container truck by the road after it had broken down.

As Mr Zailee Othman, a 45-year-old Malaysian, waited for repairs to be done, he sat by the roadside and started to eat a packet of fried rice.

Suddenly, a seemingly out-of-control tipper truck crashed into him.

The accident happened on Changi Coast Road in the direction of Nicoll Drive at 5.30pm last Friday.

Before the truck hit Mr Zailee, it had smashed into a parked silver sedan from Mr Zailee’s company.

Two mechanics had been sent to repair the container truck. Both men were unhurt as they were not in the car when the accident happened.

They heard the tipper truck coming from behind the container truck and instinctively dodged it, reported Lianhe Wanbao.

They also shouted out to Mr Zailee, but it was too late. He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

Said Mr Zailee’s sister-in-law: “It was just a few seconds, Zailee’s colleagues were able to dodge it, but he couldn’t do it.”

The impact was so strong that the back half of the sedan was crushed into the body of the car.

One of the mechanics told Shin Min Daily News that the tipper truck sent Mr Zailee “into the air”.

The tipper truck ended up in a nearby ditch, pinning Mr Zailee underneath.

The 36-year-old driver of the tipper truck was taken to Changi General Hospital conscious.

A Singapore Civil Defence Force spokesman said officers used a hydraulic cutter to extricate the body.

Mr Zailee was on his final delivery assignment for the day, and he could have gone home after that, said his sister-in-law.

She said his wife was devastated and fainted several times after she heard the news.

At the mortuary yesterday, she told reporters that Mr Zailee’s wife was still in Malaysia – as she does not have a passport – even though she wants to come to Singapore to find out what happened.

The body was taken back to their Malaysia home yesterday.

BREADWINNER

The couple has four sons, aged four to 14, and Mr Zailee was the breadwinner of the family.

His colleagues described him as a friendly and hardworking man who never had problems with his work.

A police spokesman told The New Paper on Sunday that no arrest has been made so far. Investigations are ongoing.

– Additional reporting by Ng Jun Sen

This article was first published on March 6, 2016.
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Singaporeans should pass on their knowledge “to make sure that the next generation is always better than us”.

This was the call from Mr Chan Chun Sing, Minister, Prime Minister’s Office and deputy chairman of the People’s Association (PA), at an SGfuture engagement session yesterday.

It focused on lifelong learning for senior citizens and how the community can support them – which the PA hopes to do by linking them up with like-minded people and providing venues.

“If we as individuals keep learning but never pass on the experiences, then we’ll be back to 1965,” said Mr Chan.

Brainstorming ideas at the Future of Us exhibition venue at Marina Bay were about 80 participants aged 23 to 78.

Retired electrical engineer Ho Hew Lee, 73, gives free IT talks and hands-on sessions to those over 50 years of age once a month at Bukit Merah Public Library. “It is a challenge to get the seniors to come out of their comfort zone,” he said.

Nanyang Technological University undergraduate Sai Fengjia, 24, teamed up with three friends on a final-year project, named Savvy Silvers, to help seniors get to grips with smartphones.

“We created a curriculum to teach them basic functions of the phone, and then we advanced to specific apps on the phone,” she said.

Retiree Fong Kwok Onn, 65, stressed the importance of seniors knowing how to use technology like Skype and WhatsApp, instead of traditional phones, to communicate with friends and relatives overseas. “It’s free of charge,” he said.

Mr Chan said the PA is working with the Singapore Workforce Development Agency and other agencies to create more courses tailored for seniors where they can use their $500 SkillsFuture credit.

linyc@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 6, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

Two weeks ago, a group of Indonesian travellers linked to the terror group were deported. The Sunday Times looks at what led to their capture, where they came from and the challenge of stopping others like them.

On a Thursday evening three weeks ago, three men and a teenage boy from a boarding school in Bogor, West Java, got off a budget airline at Changi Airport.

They were dressed in T-shirts, jeans and casual jackets, and carried backpacks – not unlike many young Indonesian travellers.

But something about the group seemed odd to the undercover officer monitoring the passengers coming through the arrival gate at 9pm on Feb 18. His hunch proved right when they took the escalators a floor down to the immigration counters.

Mukhlis Khoirur Rofiq, 22, had a passport expiring the same day as that of his brother Muhammad Mufid Murtadho, who was just nine days away from his 15th birthday.

The brothers approached different counters. One followed Risno, 27, and the other, Untung Sugema Mardjuk, 48. The brothers could speak English, but their travel companions could not.

The Singapore authorities allowed them entry but continued to put them under surveillance.

Once they cleared customs, they took public transport to Woodlands Checkpoint. By midnight, they were on a bus that crossed the Causeway and was heading to Johor Baru. When it stopped at Larkin bus terminal in Johor, the four travellers went to a nearby prayer room to sleep.

The next morning, Friday, Feb 19, they boarded a bus and returned to Singapore.

Their unusual travel pattern prompted immigration officers to stop them at the passport counter and they were subsequently questioned by the Internal Security Department.

They were put on three separate ferries to Batam two days later on Feb 21, and handed over to Indonesia’s counter-terrorism police.

BUILDING A TRAVEL FOOTPRINT

Mukhlis had booked a one-night stay for that Friday at a budget hotel in central Singapore on a popular Indonesian travel site. The group also had plane tickets to fly back to Jakarta on Saturday, Feb 20.

Unlike the two Indonesians who were detained on Nov 5 at the HarbourFront Ferry Terminal and were on their way to join Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), this group was not bound for Syria immediately. They did not have enough money to head there yet.

Rather, in the first case of its kind detected here, the four wanted to build a travel footprint so that the authorities would regard them as legitimate travellers when they eventually had enough funds to head to the conflict zone.

“Singapore was not a launch pad for their travel – they came here just to get their passports stamped,” said Professor Rohan Gunaratna, who heads the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. “They have also admitted to the authorities in Indonesia that their intention was to travel to Syria and be part of ISIS.”

DEEPLY RADICALISED

Videos and material related to ISIS were found on the men’s mobile phones, sources from intelligence agencies in the region familiar with the case said.

All four were from a school, the Pondok Pesantren Ibnu Mas’ud in Bogor, West Java.

Mukhlis taught religion and mathematics, while his younger brother was a student. Risno and Untung were cooks at the school, which had some 180 students.

Investigations by the Indonesian authorities found the school is associated with radical ideologue Aman Abdurrahman, who is in Nusakambangan prison in Central Java. Even from his cell, Aman has been influential in reaching out to ISIS supporters across the country.

He has also been in touch with Indonesian ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq, many of whom are members of the South-east Asian unit Katibah Nusantara.

And Mukhlis, Mufid and their family were loyal supporters of that cause. Their father Armeidi was in a chat group with ISIS fighters and planned to sell his house and migrate to Syria with his family.

He and several of his family members took the bai’ah (oath of allegiance) to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a ceremony in south Jakarta in 2014.

They believed that suicide bombing was justified, and were also prepared to kill other Muslims – because those who did not follow their ideology could be deemed disbelievers. The school also propagated these hardline ideas.

Mr Muh Taufiqurrohman, a senior researcher at Indonesia-based non-governmental organisation Centre for Radicalism and Deradicalisation Studies, told The Sunday Times that the school is one of at least three boarding schools to have emerged in recent years where ISIS supporters study or find work, and enrolled their children.

At least a dozen people from the school have travelled to Syria.

They include Mukhlis’ elder brother Ghozian, a former treasurer at the school who left for Syria early this year with three others. Ghozian had travelled through Singapore and Malaysia on transit to Thailand and then Turkey.

A senior Indonesian police source said Singapore’s Changi Airport is a favoured stop for Indonesians travelling to fight in Syria given its proximity to home and flight connections. Yet, many also go undetected as transit passengers are not subject to immigration checks.

A former principal of the school, Abu Umar, also left for Syria with his wife and four children, and was last known to be in Mosul, Iraq.

The current principal – Mashadi, who is in his 30s – is said to be an ISIS supporter from Riau Islands.

PERSISTENT DANGER

Around 700 Indonesians are estimated to have travelled to Syria to fight, and the authorities in the region are concerned that when they return home, they will sow hatred.

More worrying, however, are those who never left but stayed in touch with Katibah fighters in Syria online. There are also those who are indoctrinated through schools like Ibnu Mas’ud.

The four who travelled to Singapore held hardline views – that suicide bombing was permissible, and killing other Muslims was all right if they did not subscribe to their beliefs. They also wanted to kill Shi’ites in Syria.

They did not meet people in Singapore, and Prof Rohan noted that the fact that they were detected shows the authorities are vigilant. There is also strong counter-terrorism co-operation between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, he said.

When the four were sent back in three ferries – for security reasons – they were detained by Indonesian counter-terror police for questioning. The police recorded their statements, but had to let them go as there were no provisions under Indonesian law to detain them longer.

Mr Taufiqurrohman noted that other radicalised Indonesians, who were stopped before they could reach Syria, would still want to carry out attacks on Indonesian police as well as Shi’ite and other minority communities in Indonesia.

“The Indonesian security apparatus needs to monitor their activities closely, especially to find out with whom these four associate themselves,” he said. “If they communicate with Indonesian ISIS fighters in Syria, they will pose a threat because they will continue to receive online bomb-making instructions, funding and orders to carry out terrorist attacks.”

Even as the four were found out, it remains unclear just how many others have travelled to Singapore without being detected. Who else might have transited here on their way to Syria?

Observers like Prof Rohan say governments can be alert only up to a point. Much more remains to be done to step up vigilance and harden laws to tackle the terror threat.

zakirh@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on March 6, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

Some educators question if mergers are only feasible way to address declining cohort sizes

On Friday, it was announced that 22 secondary schools will be merged into 11 over the next two years to ensure they each have a “critical mass” to give students a good range of educational programmes and co-curricular activities (CCAs).

But The Sunday Times has found that some secondary schools which have already been merged still struggle to attract new students.

In the middle of 2014, it was revealed that starting from this year, Fajar Secondary would be combined with Chestnut Drive Secondary, while Ping Yi Secondary would join with Bedok Town Secondary.

The Sunday Times understands that there are around 90 Secondary 1 students in four classes at the new Ping Yi Secondary. At the new Fajar, there are about 80 students in its three Sec 1 classes.

In comparison, Ping Yi Secondary has eight and 12 classes at Sec 3 and 4 levels respectively, while there are at least five classes at Fajar’s other levels. In popular secondary schools, there is an average of 10 classes at each level.

A Sec 1 student at Fajar who did not want to be named said she had wanted to join the girls’ badminton team but was turned away.

“We needed six people for a team and they said that there weren’t enough because of the small cohort.

“So I had to join netball instead.”

Ryhan Sollihin, 13, another Sec 1 student at Fajar, said: “I thought the school would be big and have many students, especially since it just merged. My teacher gives me more attention in class, as there are fewer students, but I can’t make as many friends.”

The schools did not respond to press queries.

The Education Ministry (MOE) on Friday said 14 schools, including North View Secondary and Balestier Hill Secondary, which did not have any Sec 1 intake this year, will be merged to form seven schools next year.

Another four pairs of schools – Chong Boon Secondary and Yio Chu Kang Secondary, Bedok North Secondary and Damai Secondary, Greenview Secondary and Loyang Secondary, and Bishan Park Secondary and Peirce Secondary – will be combined in 2018 to also arrest their falling admissions.

MOE said the mergers were down to fewer babies being born here over the past two decades, which has led to a “corresponding decline in overall demand for school places”.

This year’s Sec 1 cohort size is about 38,600, down from about 50,000 a decade ago. There are 158 secondary schools here.

The other two schools that merged this year are Tanglin Secondary, which took in Clementi Woods Secondary, and Bartley Secondary, which merged with First Toa Payoh Secondary.

This is already the third merger for First Toa Payoh, while Clementi Woods was initially formed from a 2007 merger between Ghim Moh Secondary and Jin Tai Secondary.

A teacher at a school slated for merger in 2018 said that mergers can become a “vicious circle”.

“If you look at past trends, how many schools that have been merged end up merging again? Parents will assume that the school has a small intake because people don’t want to go there…

“In fact, it’s not really the case,” he said. “The main problem is the demographics of the school’s location.”

Asked whether the latest list of merged schools might merge again, MOE said that the possibility cannot be ruled out.

Meanwhile, some of the schools slated for merger in 2018 will continue to have to deal with small cohorts.

Nicole Descalsota, who is the chairman of her CCA, the St John Ambulance Brigade, at Greenview Secondary in Pasir Ris, said her CCA welcomed a single Sec 1 student this year.

Every other level, from Sec 2 to Sec 4, has about six to seven members.

“It’s hard for us. We don’t have enough people to help the CCA to grow,” said 15-year-old Nicole, who is in Sec 3.

“I don’t know if the CCA might close down by the time we merge and it would be a pity because the students train quite hard.”

The Sunday Times understands that Bishan Park Secondary restricted its new Sec 1 students to just five out of the school’s 15 CCAs to cope with the smaller student numbers.

Greenview Secondary received about 80 students this year, compared with 180 last year. Bishan Park Secondary and Chong Boon Secondary both received about 60 students each.

Dr Stuart Martin, principal of Nexus International School, said that such schools might struggle to offer a broad curriculum with a variety of CCAs due to the lack of economies of scale.

National Institute of Education Associate Professor Jason Tan said the current system in which students can apply for any secondary school after the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) means that “it is inevitable that schools have different levels of popularity”.

So it is difficult to ensure an equal number of students at each secondary school.

Some educators questioned if mergers are the only feasible way to address the issue of falling cohort sizes, given that some schools seem to bear the brunt of the shortfall, while others still see consistent demand, even if they are in mature housing estates.

National University of Singapore Associate Professor Paulin Straughan said alternatives to the “blunt instrument” of school mergers should be considered.

“Has the definition of what is an optimal size been revisited, with new key performance indicators in place?

“The morale of teachers takes a hit when they are in a school that is here today, gone tomorrow.

“When students and staff identify with the history of their school, they feel a sense of pride and do better. Pragmatism only gets you so far.”

On Friday, MOE clarified that it does not intend to reduce the overall student-to-teacher ratio in classes across all schools.

Instead, additional resources freed up by the smaller cohorts are invested in special “levelling up” programmes, particularly in primary schools and in Normal (Technical) classes at secondary schools.

But Prof Straughan urged schools slated for merger to use this chance to pilot small-group teaching programmes that can also level up the masses of students in the middle who have slipped behind their peers during the PSLE.

“This can be an educational experiment for schools to showcase small-group teaching pedagogies.”

She also suggested that schools group with other schools for CCA activities so that children will have more choice and get to build bigger social networks.

Smaller classes: Boon or bane?

There are 36 students in Asher Tan’s Sec 1 class at Greenview Secondary School, and they already make up almost half of his school’s Sec 1 cohort, which totals about 80.

But he spends the majority of time in his class with a smaller group of 18 as the class is split into half for main academic subjects like English, mathematics and science.

The periods when he can meet the other half of the students in his class are during recess and general classes like physical education or Mother Tongue.

Asher says that during classes, he gets called on by his teacher more often.

“There are a lot more students in my friends’ schools. It’s a bit weird knowing that I will be in the same class with the same people for four years, unless some of the students from the Normal stream transfer in,” said Asher, who is 13 years old.

He has band practice sessions twice a week, with about six other Secondary 1 students.

There are about 20 students in each of the other levels in his co-curricular activity.

“I don’t mind merging with other schools,” said Asher. “Maybe we can meet our friends in other schools that way.”

On the other hand, Sebestian Goh, a Sec 1 student at Bishan Park Secondary School, likes the fact that his class has fewer than 20 students.

“Not a lot of people will talk at the same time, so the teacher listens to us more,” he said.

“We get a higher chance of getting a leadership position in school,” said Joshua Orpia, a Sec 1 student at Chong Boon Secondary School.

yuensin@sph.com.sg

Additional reporting by Melissa Lin

This article was first published on March 6, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.