Primary school Education

I have never thought much of me getting an English Education in the 70's (a few years after independence), it was a decision jointly arrived by my father and mother then.

It is only when I started working in a clinic in 2014 that I saw so many patients that are in my age group that does not seem to have completed a formal education, let alone an English one, that I started to appreciate THE decision made by my parents.

I remembered going to kindergarten then was quite a scary affair, I don't seem to understand what the teachers say (we only have one year before starting primary school).

One particular incident I remembered though, is when teachers pinpointed to those that hasn't pay up for the text books. So 'malu' as a 6 year old little girl.

The uniform is a pinafore printed in red and white checks.  We sat on cemented floor to learn the ABC's.

In 1973, it seems that queueing for a place in primary school is a system respected and applied. I heard from my maternal great grand-mother that she queued for me.  We were staying in Redhill area then and all the schools were full, schools like Bukit Merah Primary school, Henderson Primary school,

I think we were allocated (or is it queue, I am no sure) to Havelock Primary School which is near Bukit Ho Swee. It's a distance from where I live, Blk 67 Jalan Bukit Merah.

I remembered going to school on the first day with my mother, and there was a little girl in front of me wearing blue frocks, swaying in the wind and looking quite cute.  The girl later turned out to be my longest known friend, even though there were years we lost contact but we found each other through Facebook, a new technology which we would never have imagined during those times.

In 1979, we shifted to Telok Blangah and I transferred to a new school, Blangah Rise Primary School which is just below my HDB block.

By the 90's, there is no more Havelock Primary School and Blangah Rise Primary School had shifted to Telok Blagah Heights (the new address is not reflective of the schools' name).