Education - Part 1

Primary School

My first school was Sekolah Kebangsaan Pusat Kuala Ibai, Kuala Terengganu. I was in standard 1 in the year of 1965.

Sekolah Pusat Kuala Ibai today.

I remember in the year of 1965, the school has only 3 single storey split buildings for classes and administration office and one isolated public toilet constructed outside those classrooms. They also have another isolated building for canteen and a large area for soccer field, hockey and netball arena. Somehow, the road leading to the main entrance are made of red brown soil which during the wet season has caused so much problems to the teachers' cars. They have to climb the road leading to the school parking area and pupils' may have to push the cars many occasions then.

In the middle of the 3 buildings are the school's garden with big pokok Kelat or wood Chelate trees, a kind of local heavy hardwood red beech species. The trees were big with the stem  bigger than a hug by a person. It was very difficult to climb up those trees. However there were few stooges whom have proven their skills and managed to climb the same...and I was one of them. As a reward for our creativity and braveness, we were forced to be presence in front of the Headmaster's office to receive our punishment by 3 canning on the right hand palm. It was painful so that we hated the trees so much then.

Our pocket money per day at that time were between 20 to 30 cents per school day. I have 20 cents per day for my expenses. With that 20 cents, I bought nasi lemak for 10 cents and 5 cents  for a syrup drink during class recession at 10 am. I still have balance 5 cents which I kept and collected every day as my saving. By end of the month, normally I had 1.00 dollar in my saving which I gave back to my mother. At that time Malaysian currencies are called in dollars and cents. I reckoned 1 dollar at that time was equivalent with more than 10 MYR today if compared with the purchasing power of the money.

banana leaf in place of umbrella for shelter

I went to school by foot. It was about less than 1km from my house. I woke up at 6.00am everyday. By 7.20 am I was already in school playing around with friends. If I have a duty roster I could have been in my class as early as 7.00am. I have been late few times to school during wet or monsoon season, but was pardoned due to the unavoidable situation. I used to cut banana leaves for my shelter from rain in place of umbrella. Those days umbrella was expensive and meant for ladies and girls only.

Every Sunday morning (in states like Terengganu, Kelantan, Perlis, Kedah and even Johor were having weekly holiday on Friday and Saturday at that time) after singing National Song Negaraku, the disciplinary teacher will check every fingers of pupils. If the nails are long and dirty you will have a punishment by canning. So, most of us have assured ourselves that our nails are clean and cut before going to school on every Sundays.

We also have to ensure our dress were clean and neat. Shoes, stockings, shorts and shirts must be in clean and acceptable condition by the discipline teacher. Hair must be short and neat. If your hair was considered long by the teacher, he will then cut your hair in a very unacceptable style of which your hair might be looked like a peeled coconut fruit. If you have undergone this type of humiliation, you will not dare to keep long hair again in school forever.

The best part was...none of us will tell or try to get some sympathy from our parents for punishments that we have in school so as to avoid further or extra blames from them. Those days our parents were on the school's side!!!