A TEACHERS’CARD SAYS IT ALL

From left: Lim Een Hong, Chief Executive Officer of EduSpec Holdings Berhad, Dr Yee Moh Chai, Hambali Shuib, President of Kota Kinabalu Headmasters Council and Eng Thiam Leong, President of the Sabah Chinese School Teachers Association.

8 YEARS on, Dr Yee Moh Chai’s idea is growing strong. It’s that time of the year when teachers are honoured; thanks to Dr Yee Moh Chai, a Sabah deputy chief minister and minister of resource development and information technology.

From May 16 teachers will each receive one of the 200,000 greeting cards from their pupils telling them how much they love and respect them. The cards, mooted by Dr Yee in 2005, have since become integral in celebrating Teachers’ Day throughout Malaysia.

Education is close to the heart of Dr Yee who has lots of respect for teachers. He noticed that there were greetings cards for almost all occasions, from birthdays, to weddings, to anniversaries and holidays but none for teachers.

So he got school principals together to organise a drawing contest for pupils. Their best drawings are then picked for the greeting cards. It is a clever idea which encourages and promotes artistic talents of young children, and makes them IT savvy as they learn to draw and design their cards on computers.

Forty-four of the best drawings have been chosen from 1,022 for the cards during the month-long contest which began in March in 259 primary and 59 secondary schools. The 44 winners will get a trophy and 100 ringgit ($33) while 91 will get a consolation prize of 50 ringgit.

EduSpec Holdings Berhad paid the 60,000-ringgit printing cost of the cards. Dr Yee said schools might sell the cards at one ringgit each to raise funds for their extra-curricular activities or donations to poor pupils.

Teachers’ Day is celebrated around the world on different dates. In Malaysia it is May 16 to honour the late Razak Hussein, father of Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib, whose Razak Report in 1956 has become the cornerstone of Malaysia’s education. Razak was education minister then. He was Malaysia’s second prime minister from 1970 to 1976, succeeding the late Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj. (Insight Sabah-Pictures by Victor Lo)