Taiko Muthu Fizahtaik Bin Lefkelebetey Tan
Blk 866 Marina Barrage Makarena 9th Avenue
Singapore 712311
15/7/2111


Republic Polytechnic
9Woodlands Ave 9
Singapore 738964

Dear Sir/Mam

Banning of All Social Networking Websites in Republic Polytechnic

I have heard of the ban of all social networking websites and instant messaging clients in Republic Polytechnic and I would like to appeal to you to not execute on behalf of the staff and students of Republic Polytechnic. The reason is that Social Networking websites and msn,yahoo messengers have proven helpful to us, students and facilitators.

Being a paperless school, online network and communication is essential especially since we are always required to work in groups. MSN messenger and other instant messaging clients can better assist us students, in completing our tasks in class.
For instance, when wanting to share relevant documents or website links of lesson-related contents to our group members, msn is the best platform to do this. While the school webmail provides almost the same services and features, msn and other instant messengers are more convenient alternatives as we are already familiar to using it, it is less prone to lagging and enable easier access to contacts .

Also, the school webmail is constantly receiving updates and mails from school staff with regards to upcoming talks and current events, and is not really the most appropriate platform to use for sharing of documents as it can easily be buried under the flood of school welfare updates. This hinders easy and fast access to documents received. By lifting the ban on instant messaging clients it will enable efficient communication, sharing and retrieval of documents during lessons


We understand that it such social networking platforms will affect students negatively. For example it will result in students not being able to focus well during lesson time, the tendency to cheat such as plagiarism, sharing information (6Ps) within friends, a waste of time during lesson where they can actually use the time for solving their daily problem statements.

Although the claims mentioned are relevant, there are still advantages of social networking during school hours. However, as a student myself, I am aware of the benefits on how these websites help our learning progress in classes. Facebook and Twitter can be very helpful, as we can have group discussion. Like for example, we could create a group page on Facebook, we are able to share our thoughts on any topic for the day. Some benefits include being able to conduct surveys within ourselves and getting a quick response. Twitter we could get latest news and ideas to be used for our presentation.

I agree to a certain extent with the intention of the school to ban the Social Networking to reduce the amount of distraction going on when lessons take place. However by doing so, the students might think that the school is questioning their maturity level. We are now young adults and we know what’s the limit to everything. We should be able to make our decision as we have the right amount of self-discipline in us.

Thus, it would be better if to request the facilitator to monitor the students in class and warn the students who are too distracted during lessons. This will improve the student conduct and be able to use social networking websites for proper use. Therefore, we hope you would take our suggestion into consideration and reconsider on the decision to ban the social networking platforms.

Yours Sincerely,
Taiko Muthu Fizahtaik Bin Lefkelebetey Tan