Prefect Board Official Duty Proposal

To: Discipline Master Mdm Mary Liau and Principal Mr Hiew Hoh Shin
18th July 2016
Dear Sir/Madam,
Proposal on alternative duties for prefects
We wish to draw your attention on the matter stated above as we feel
that the current duties particularly SCD for prefects are inappropriately
weighted and overloaded.

2. Reasons

1. The main reason is that the duty workload of a

prefect has crossed its limits. Below is the list of
duties in-charged.
Morning Late Comers (MLC)
MLC involves prefects taking down the names of student
coming late to school every day. Each prefect meets in the
board once a week from 6.50am to 7.20am.
Recess Late Comers (RLC)
RLC involves prefects taking down the names of student
who are late to class after recess. Each prefect is required to
stand at the stairs at the end of recess for two recesses
once a week.
Monday Assembly (MA)
MA involves prefects leading students of assigned class
down to the hall for weekly assembly once a week.
Canteen Lineup Assistance (CLA)
CLA involves prefects standing at canteen entrances to
prevent students from bringing drinks and certain food
away from the premise. Each prefect is required to leave
class at 11.35am for lunch and starts duty at 11:45am until
12.25pm once a week.
 Staircase Duty (SCD)
SCD involves prefects standing at staircase to prevent
students bringing food to their classes. Each prefect is
required to leave class at 11.35am for lunch and starts duty
from 12.00pm to 12.30pm once a week.
Other than duty, prefects are required to attend gatherings, which
includes
Morning Squad
As a disciplinary board, prefects are required to attend
squad practice once a week on Wednesdays.
Official Gathering (OG)
Prefects are required to attend OG on Tuesday and
Thursday first recess for briefing.
Conclusion: An average prefect has to serve on 3 mornings (MA
and MLC and Morning Squad), 3 first recesses (OG
and RLC) and 3 third recesses (CLA and SCD and RLC)
whilst losing 50 minutes of class (20mins for SCD and
CLA, 10mins for RLC).

2. Various adverse effects of these responsibility

Fatigue. Duty has become too physically demanding
(especially SCD and CLA) as prefects are required to stand
for long periods, resulting in lack of concentration including
falling asleep in class, which in long term contribute to
decrease in academic performance.
Missing out. Coming out early from class (SCD and CLA)
results in missing out part of the curriculum thought by
teachers, as prefect averagely miss one period of class per
week (four periods per month), which further contributes to
the inability to catch up with the learning pace causing the
drop in academic achievements.
Parents fading support. It has been found that some
parents have complained that the duties are too time
consuming and not constructive to their childs academic
 progress. Therefore, some parents have been unsupportive
of their son or daughters interest of continuing their role as
a prefect.
Image spoilt. All these large lumps of duties project an
adverse effect on the image of prefect board. Students have
since view Prefect Board as a jail, rather than a place to
polish your leadership. Students (especially potential
leaders) who initially expressed their interest in joining the
prefect board have withdrawn. This causes us difficulties in
recruiting potential leaders.
Conclusion: It is understood that the basic responsibility of a
student/prefect attending an educational institution
is to study well for good results. It can be seen that
overloaded duties are contribution antagonistically to
this statement.

3. SCD and CLA systems flaws

SCD. Prefects start duty from 12pm until 12.30pm which
allows students to bring their lunch to their respective
classes through the gap of 11:45am until 12pm and
12.30pm until 12.40pm. It is also understood that it is
impossible to ask of prefects to guard stairs for the whole
period of third recess.
CLA. Prefects start duty from 11:45pm until 12:25pm which
allows students to bring away drinks after that period.
Conclusion: It can be seen that these two methods are not as
effective and are not achieving what is intended.

Questions for thoughts:

1. Should every prefect handle this much responsibility to the point
that it affects his/her personal life?
2. Is there any better, more holistic and effective solutions to solve
these problems?
 We sincerely thank you for willingly taking your time to hear out our
voices. We hope you will understand our situation emphatically and
civilly. We are so willing and open for discussions for alternatives in this
matter. Your considerations are much appreciated.

Proposed by:

_____________ ____________
(TEE BOON ZHIE) (ZOE WONG)
Head Prefect Head Prefect

_____________ ____________
(LEE HONG LIN) (JESS NG)
Asst. Head Prefect Asst. Head Prefect

_____________ ____________
(LAI CHUNGZEN) (KELLY YONG)
Commander Commander