The social chatter: Hwa Chong Institution suspends counsellor for discriminatory LGBTQ claims

The Hwa Chong Institution is known to be one of the most premier education institutes in Singapore. Unfortunately, the instituition saw itself in a bit of hot water after a counsellor made headlines for a presentation containing discriminatory claims against the LGBTQ community. The counsellor has since been suspended.

The content shared by the counsellor made claims that homosexuals had intestinal worms and were at higher risk of being paedophiles. There were also connections being made around homosexuality and alcoholism, along with sexual assault. In a bid to manage the image, the prestigious institution in Singapore has since clarified that the content was out of the scope of the Ministry of Education's (MOE) sexuality education curriculum, and that the views presented were the counsellor's personal perspectives.

Since the incident, the school has also been on the watch for students who might be impacted by the content shared by the counsellor on  July 13.

Unfortunately, according to data from Meltwater, much of the online chatter since the incident was around the school’s poor response to the incident. Many criticised the school for not immediately suspending the counsellor.

Meltwater also said that many “felt that the school’s response was disappointing but expected” given its conservative nature. Interestingly however, contributors on hardwarezone seemed to empathise more with counsellor, and felt that people were being overly sensitive and were “offended for no reason”.

Overall, there was a 33% negative sentiment around the education institute and brand.

From 15 July to 4 August 2022, there have been 5.57k mentions which is a 5101% increase for the brand.

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