School In Miri Finally Give Students Their SPM And O Level Certs After Holding It For 50 Years, Founder Apologises
The students could not get their examination certs because of outstanding school fees.
Subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest stories and updates.
The founder and former principal of a private secondary school in Miri have apologised to its former students.
The reason is that there are more than 700 examination certs of students who studied at the school between the 1970s and 1980s.
According to the Chinese language news portal Seehua, Datuk Lau Siu Wai – who established the Miri Secondary School – found the batch of examination certs while clearing up the school which is now defunct.
He is saddened to think that the students might have been affected in their career because they did not get the certs.
Money Matters
Lau pointed out that when sorting through the diplomas, he also found a note of outstanding tuition fees attached to some of the diplomas.
He believed that the school might have asked students to pay back their tuition fees before they could collect their examination certs.
As a result, some poor students who were not able to pay their tuition fees did not receive their diplomas.
Lau apologized to the students on behalf of the school management and hoped that they could come to collect the certs as a souvenir.
Seeking Redemption
Lau, who is now 92, founded the school in 1960 with a group of shareholders, became its supervisor and headmaster in 1965, a post he held until 1969.
According to Borneo Post, he started the school with a loan of RM50,000.
The school began with 230 students and eight classrooms, with over 1,600 students and 32 classrooms at its peak.
When he returned to Miri in 1989 from a failed business venture in Thailand, the school was down to just over 100 students and had accumulated a lot of debt.
At the age of 92, he said he did not know how much time he had left in this world, so he started to clear out the old stuff.
He found that the examination certs had not been given out to the students when he was sorting through the school’s old folders.
Debt Of Honour
Lau did not have the addresses of the students, and so he could not give them the examination certs.
As an alternative, he decided to put them on display in the lobby of the Miri Bintang Megamall and hoped that they would collect them.
Lau, who is the executive chairman of Miri Housing Group, hopes that public schools, including universities, will not repeat the school’s mistake.
He said no student should be denied their examination certs just because they can’t afford to pay the school fees.
Share your thoughts with us via TRP’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
