Little respect for the elderly

I journey every morning to St Luke's Hospital for work. Bus number 75 stops just outside the building and elderly people going to hospital for an appointment take the same bus.

Their eloquent silence on the bus as well as their venerable longevity make the journey a very human experience. The bus arrives punctually every morning and hospital not being some popular venue, we all arrive ready to face our day's duties.

Tables however are turned when October starts. The bus fills up with students who find it convenient to use the bus heading for hospital, which happens to be quite near to Junior College. The bubbly presence of these youths, so full of life, is human too. What is, however, shocking is what appears to be the total ignorance of most of them to the presence of others less fortunate than they.

One elderly man boards the bus so evidently on his way to hospital, and not one student offers him his/her seat. One elderly lady does the same and shares the same fate, amid several jeers from the male section of the student body at the back of the bus, who preferred to share jokes about her appearance.

Such behaviour made me ask a few questions. Is our secondary school education aimed only at successful academia, leaving out the human development of the person? How else would a Junior College student be totally devoid of respect for the elderly?

At the same time, should the hospital bus regularly accommodate a bunch of students (not medical school students) every morning at the expense of commuters strictly heading for the state hospital? It is not infrequent that route bus 75 is so loaded with students that others are left waiting on the bus stop because it is full up.