Former students of NTPS, Jalan Pasir Puteh, honoured their teachers to a dinner at the Eurasia Café before the end of last year.
Annual dinners among alumni are very common but none can lay claim to organising one for their primary school teachers who are already in their eighties. The 30 or so students who turned up for the hurriedly organised occasion are all retirees themselves in their sixties. Tears and cheers of joy flowed freely when the students and teachers met, some for the very first time after almost 50 years! Another surprise in store for the organizer was that some of the attendees, unknowingly to him, were from the same class way back in the late 50s and early 60s.
Everyone was so engrossed in catching up with each other that the MC had a difficult time controlling the crowd and gave up after a few attempts at restoring order before the start of dinner. In fact, he had to take a back seat for the rest of the night as everyone, teachers and students alike, took turns to introduce themselves as well as taking centre stage unannounced at the karaoke session.
Among the distinguished attendees were Dato’ A. Paramasivam, the newly-retired deputy CPO of Perak, Dato’ Dr N. Raman, former Director of Hospital Bahagia, Dato’ Lean Meng Seong, retired banker, Professor Dr Mohd. Jamil Basha, retired university lecturer, Ir. Oon Eng Hock, a consultant, several doctors and others, who are all former students of this school. They paid tribute to their all-time favourite teachers Mr Charlie Foo, Mr Yeoh Seng Choon, Mdm Joycelyn Aw, Mrs Kamala Ramanathan and Mrs Hew Chai Kee (who is immortalized in Lat’s cartoon) by playing the song “To Sir, With Love” to these few dedicated and selfless teachers.
SH Ong
