Who Says There is No More Poverty....?

Pakdokter's secondary school, STAR, was one of the three pioneer boarding schools set up by the government at the time of our Independence ( 1957) , to provide an opportunity for students from Primary Malay Medium schools ( most of which were located in deprived and marginalised rural areas) to further their studies in better surroundings with qualified teachers and well equipped classes and laboratories. And the medium of instruction was English, thus necessitating all of us ( most of whom hardly spoke a word of English) to go through one year of intensive English classes in the 'Form Remove' year. And these schools ( STAR, SDAR and STF) have proven to be a success as evident from the many outstanding students who have made it in their vocation and serving their country well today.

Over the years, the influx of very qualified students who made it on merit into these boarding schools have completely changed the character of the student population. Many of these students no longer come from the rural areas but from middle income urban families who had a headstart in helping these kids do better than their rural counterparts and thus win the coveted places in these boarding schools.

So it was heartening for pakdokter to learn recently that our Ministry of Education has made it its policy that a quota of places be allocated in these boarding schools for students from poor families ( with a monthly income of less than RM700) even if their grades were not of the same standard as the other students who were offered places based on merit.

STAR offered 24 places for these poor students but apparently 11 of them did not turn up and report to the school. Using the network of STAROBA all over the country, these families were contacted and it was revealed that some of these families could not even afford the bus fare to send their sons from the kampongs to STAR in Ipoh. Some of the students who did not report to the school were from Kelantan, Trengganu, Johor and Selangor. But there were also some families which did not send their children to STAR because they preferred their sons to go to other types of boarding schools ( religious studies boarding schools).

So who says there is no more poverty........?

STAROBA had put up a 'notice' about this matter on Facebook and some generous old boys had quickly collected some donation to immediately help out these young children from missing out of an opportunity for themselves to make a 'change' to their ( and their family) lives.

Anticipating that this is going to be a recurring problem every year in the future, the STAROBA Exco decided that it should work on a long-term plan to establish a 'FUND' to help out students caught in situations like this.

Pakdokter was invited to a preliminary brain-storming session over coffee at the KL Hilton today. Some of the senior gentlemen from the pioneering first batch of 1957 were there together with the President and the Vice-President to explore mechanisms on how to initiate this 'Fund'.

pakdokter and Yang Arif Yusof Ahmad..

Datuk Jaafar Kamim and Abdul Rahim Naseh..

pakdokter, Kapt Sany Johan and VP Azlan Abdullah..

Datuk Mahadi Murad and President Datuk Nasir Ahmad..