Strolling through the school system

Author's note: None of what's written here are to be taken as advice how one should approach the schooling years. While he had free-wheeling days in school, the author still believes that passing through with good grades is the easiest way to secure one's future. 

My car, parked in front of the school hall in Kuala Pilah on my recent visit.

FOR some reasons, my interest in school waned as I grew older. I wasn't that bad a performer in my early years in school but that somewhat declined as I approached the end of my days in the classroom.

 I started schooling at the Port Dickson Government English Primary School, or GEPS as it was often referred to as then,  one January afternoon in 1968 in a class known as standard 1 White.

 I enjoyed myself tremendously there. The school was by the sea and the casuarina trees lining the seafront made a soothing sound when the sea breeze blew against them. 

 And being in standard 1 was a lot of fun. We learned to write, to count and to read, and before the bell rings to mark the end of class at about six in the evening, we sang some children songs. On many afternoons, all of us would sing, 'Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream...' at the top of our voices before dashing for the doors, out of the school compound and most of the time towards a stall selling ice-balls (shaved ice shaped into a ball and sprinkled with rose syrup and sarsaparilla).

 I was in that school until 1971 before we moved to my kampung at the end of the year. From 1972 onwards I attended the St Aidan primary school in Bahau, Negeri Sembilan.

 I was there until I finished my primary education at the end of 1972. I made good friends at the school, a few of whom remained in touch with me to this day.

 I achieved a rather commendable set of results for my standard five assessment exams, and with that, was called for an interview to continue my secondary education at the MARA Junior Science College in Seremban. My parents were elated but quietly, I resented being called for the interview as I was beginning to enjoy living in the small town and my kampung, and I was making friends.

 I did not get through the final selection process. I was glad but was later selected to join a special programme as a student of the King George V secondary school in Seremban. As I had no relatives living in Seremban, I had to travel quite a distance to school, from my sister's place in Port Dickson.

 The commute was tiring and I reached home at about nine in the evening every day as I had to attend the afternoon session. I guess that was when I started asking myself this whole idea about going to school.

 Fortunately, the long commute lasted only four months as I was then offered a place at a newly established fully-boarding school called Sekolah Menengah Sains, Negeri Sembilan (now Sekolah Menengah Sains Tuanku Jaafar).  Since the school was still under construction at the time, the students comprising only years one and two, were housed temporarily at a primary school block that was converted into a hostel somewhere in the southern part of town. I hated that place as it resembled a refugee camp more than anything else.

The boys hostel at the school in Kuala Pilah

 I only got to the spanking new school in Kuala Pilah in 1975 but I despised it right from the word 'go'. I did not hate the school or the people whom were with me then, but I simply could not cope with the system required to get through life in a boarding school such as that.

 Long before I got to that boarding school, I was already quite capable of taking care of myself. I didn't need anybody to tell me when to wake up, when to study, when to sleep and when to have my meals.  I mean after spending a decade of my life in an army camp in Port Dickson and watching how the lives of people there were governed largely by commands shouted by their superior officers, I had no interest whatsoever in subjecting myself to such a life.

 And as if that was not enough, the school in Kuala Pilah had an acute and seemingly insurmountable problem. There was always water shortage and for four years, I had to be satisfied with having my baths most of the time with just a pail of water. That was ridiculous, I thought, as even the cowboys in the western movies I saw had a tub of water to bathe in.

 To show my displeasure, I became rebellious and immersed myself in my own world of trying to beat the system. I did everything that went against the rules and was punished on numerous occasion. Many of the offences I had committed would easily have resulted in expulsion but for reasons perhaps only known to him, the school principal decided to keep me there.
 Somehow, I got through the Lower Certificate Examinations with a grade sufficient to continue studying in the boarding school but by then, I was fast losing interest.
 Form four was a different ball game altogether. I was in the science stream which means I was faced with three science subjects and two related to mathematics. I had no problems in the early months but as soon as the subjects got more technical, I began to ask myself the rationale of learning them.
 I had no interest whatsoever in becoming a doctor or an engineer, two of the most sought-after courses of study at the time. I often asked myself at which point in my life after school would I be required to solve a mathematical or a chemical equation. When I realised that there probably wouldn't be any, I lost interest completely in studying.
 I barely scraped through my final examinations, the Malaysia Certificate of Education exams, at the end of 1978. And as most of my friends went to further their studies to colleges both locally and abroad, I started get myself together and plot my own future.

Me, as managing editor of the Business Times, giving my take on the European economy at the NTV7 Breakfast Show.

 Compared with my peers at school, I had to follow a longer route to get to where I am today but I have no regrets. I consider myself fortunate for having been able to eventually enter a field that I like and find my little spot in this world. I am now doing what I do best and most important of all, what I enjoy.
 Looking back however, I did learn a thing or two in school although most were not found in the textbooks, the laboratories or classrooms. I was never an active member of any school club. Neither was I active in any sport.
 But I learned how to live my life. How to be resourceful and most important of all, how to be myself and not to just go with the flow.
 I never once blamed the school system. It was designed as such long before I entered that standard 1 White in 1968. Many have succeeded within the system.
 The problem was that I had difficulties in adapting. I never expected the school system to adapt itself to me either. I was just a frail boy trying to get the hell out of everybody's way.
 Instead, I bought time and waited until I found my own calling. I always believe that if one is patient enough and work hard enough, that calling will eventually come.

ENDS