Today is the last day of the seven weeks school holidays. Tomorrow, a new academic year will begin for all school going children in the country. Time really flies!
I think by now most parents have got the basic things ready – uniforms, shoes, stockings, bags and stationery. It is not cheap to prepare a child to school. It is worst if you have a few school going children!
One very important lesson I had learnt over the years is – never ever buy cheap stuffs for your kids. Cheap stuffs don’t last long and if your kids need to use them every day, it is advisable to buy good quality stuffs so that they can be more durable.
Take for instance, the school shoes.
Years ago, I bought two pairs of school shoes from the night market for my son. They looked so flawless and came cheap. But the thing is – they do not have a brand’s name. And guess what? They could not survive a month after school started! The shoes looked like baby crocodiles with mouths wide opened. In the end, I have to buy again. This time I got him two pairs of branded ones. They saw him through the year.
“Cheap things don’t come good and good things don’t come cheap” is true in this case. In other words, a pair of branded shoes is better than two pairs of cheap ones from the night market.
I had just spent several hundreds of dollars on two kids alone. It is roughly a month’s salary of a kindergarten teacher or half a month’s of an office clerk. Yes, it costs that much because secondary school’s uniforms are more expensive than primary’s. This excludes the school fees. So, when you add the school fees into the bill, it will be more than a thousand dollars.
It is easier now since many parents have access to credit cards. Just imagine how tough it is for the parents of yesteryear when they do not earn much and have a big brood of children to educate.
I remembered watching my Mom breaking the clay piggy bank in the shape of a rooster and also going to the pawn shop with a few rings or necklaces for some money so that we could start school like the rest. While “First to Bata, then to school” was a popular slogan for many families, it was “First to Weng Fook, then to school” for us. Weng Fook was a pawn shop two blocks from our shop on Hugh Low Street.
With five school going children and Dad struggling to make ends meet after our coffee shop had closed down, it was a miracle that we could still go to school and have a decent education. Dad and Mom were both uneducated but they knew the importance of sending their children to school. They were determined to keep us in schools at all costs. The thoughts of taking us out from schools never cross their minds.
We used hand-me-downs uniforms, shoes, bags and books. Since I was the youngest, I was the perfect recipient of worn out uniforms and shoes as well as torn books. But Dad still needs to buy replacements for the elder ones as well as pay monthly school fees. In those days, you have to buy books as government loan books were not available yet.
After getting us started for schools, our parents found that they have no more money left to celebrate the Chinese New Year which normally falls in the same month or a month after school started. So in the end, we did not celebrate New Year for many years.
Those were indeed very tough times for my family although they are firmly behind us now but I can’t help recalling them at times like this when school reopen tomorrow and New Year is just another three weeks away.
Tough being parents but education is so very precious to the kids.
You bet! I do understand a lot about classmates of mine who are really poor ’cause they have many siblings & yet their families were struggling to keep them going to school especially their fathers’ who have to work hard-meaning to get extra job to enable their children to go to school. Education was the utmost importance of each child’s future.
I remember I had a classmate who was unable to pay school fees in time ’cause his father was just a Bandaraya sweeper & our class teacher have to pay for him first and his father will pay later in the month or perhaps unable to.
So I stole some money from my mother and help him to pay his school fees the next month- RM16 per month, when my mother found out that I had stole her she gave me a whacking but I did not tell her what I did with the money. Then I was in form 2.
Studies is important and your two children must appreciate what their parent do for them & wish a very good future for them, not only be clever but also be wise.
Hi John,
There are many types of teachers. Some are lazy and uncaring. Their motive is just to earn a salary and nothing else matters to them.
Fortunately, there are some dedicated ones too. They gave their all and you got to be very lucky to be their students. So your friend, whose father was a roadside sweeper, could be considered a lucky chap. He was even more lucky to have you as his friend.
Yes,education is indeed very important and many parents will go the extra miles so that their children are properly educated.