SINGAPORE: It’s been drilled into us: A terror attack on Singapore is a matter of “when, not if”. The disclosure on Jul 27 that three youths had been detained under the Internal Security Act for planning attacks in Singapore brought to light one particularly chilling case: A 14-year-old Secondary Two student was arrested in May, weeks before he intended to carry out a mass-casualty stabbing at his school during the June school holidays.He had reportedly been influenced by Composite Violent Extremism (CoVE): a mixture of Islamic State propaganda, far-right extremism and fascination with mass shootings. The teen had prepared a 21-page manifesto detailing his attack plan and identified teachers and students as targets.
School attacks are not new, but a recent cluster of incidents suggests that they are no longer a predominantly American phenomenon.
In November 2025, a 17-year-old student allegedly detonated explosives in his Jakarta school, injuring 96 people. In February, an 18-year-old gunman stormed a school in southern Thailand, killing its principal and wounding a student. In June, two students aged 14 and 15 opened fire at a high school in the Philippines, killing three students and injuring at least 20 others.The case of the 14-year-old boy inevitably raises a difficult question: If school attacks are not unthinkable, what does a “when, not if” mindset mean when it comes to keeping our children safe?THE SECURITY PARADOXSchool security is not only about preventing an attack. A school must be safe but also feel safe for it to function as a school.The perception of a threat creates pressure for visible action. Once the learning environment is organised around fear, security begins to defeat its own purpose.Mandatory bag checks and school drills against assailants may reassure students and parents that the danger is being taken seriously. Yet these same measures can make the threat feel more immediate. Active-shooter drills, like those practised by millions of American students each year, illustrate this paradox: They may prepare students to respond during an attack, but they also require children to repeatedly imagine that a gunman could enter their classroom, which could institutionalise anxiety.This underpins Senior Minister K Shanmugam’s response that we cannot “turn every school into a garrison”. Children should not be in an environment designed to remind them that they could be attacked.
