First Malay HSC Holders
Abang Bohari bin Yan was the first Malay to obtain a full HSC in Arts with principal passes in Economics and Geography, subsidiary pass in Malay and a pass in General Paper.
A former federal cabinet minister, Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr. Hj Sulaiman Hj. Daud was the first Malay to obtain a full HSC in Science. They both sat for the examination in December 1955.
First Girls in Form Six
Lilian Loke and Elizabeth Woo were the first non-Malay girls from Sarawak to attend Sixth form classes. Loke joined the University of Malaya after passing the Entrance Examination in 1956.
First Malay Girl HSC Holder
In 1956, the first batch of two girls from St. Teresa’s entered Sixth Form in Sarawak. One of them, Naimah bt. Hasbie (later Puan Sri Datin Amar Naimah Hasbie Sulaiman, the wife of Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr. Hj Sulaiman Hj. Daud), had the privilege and honour of being the first Malay girl in Sarawak to gain admission to Sixth Form Science. She obtained a full Higher School Certificate with passes in Advanced Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry in the 1957 examination and qualified for university admission.
First Malay B.Sc.
Datuk Haji Arnie Lampam was the first Malay science graduate from the University of Malaya. Earlier, he was among the first batch of Form Six Science student in St. Thomas’s School who successfully passed the University Entrance Examination in September 1953.
Datuk Arnie also has the distinction of being the first Sarawakian appointed to the level of manager of Sarawak Shell Berhad.
First College Graduate
Ong Kee Hui (Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr.) was educated at St. Thomas’s School from 1924 until 1929. In January 1930, he enrolled at St. Andrew’s School in Singapore and passed the Senior Cambridge Certificate in 1932. He entered the Agriculture College in Serdang in 1933 and became the first Sarawakian to graduate from the college three years later. He then joined the Department of Agriculture in 1936 as an agriculture assistant. Active in politics, he became a member of Parliament in 1963 and held several federal ministerial posts including Minister for Technology, Research and Local Government.
First SPM in Bahasa Malaysia
Hussein Hj. Paris (Haji) was one of six candidates from Sarawak to sit for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) in Bahasa Malaysia in December 1967. A private candidate, he was the only one to pass the examination.
Born in Kuching on 10 March 1921, he attended the Malay Training College, Kuching, from 1939 to September 1941, and became a teacher at Madrasah Melayu School. During the Second World War, he was appointed to teach Malay Language at Kampung Jawa School in Kuching and Sekolah Melayu Lundu by the Japanese authorities. He resumed his teaching career at Madrasah Melayu Kuching after the war but resigned with 338 other teachers to protest the cession of Sarawak to Great Britain in 1946. He was, however, reappointed as a permanent teacher in 1951 and resumed teaching at Sekolah Kebangsaan Hj. Bolhassan, Kuching. He was later transferred to St. Thomas’s School in 1963 until his retirement in 1976.
Haji Hussein was active in teaching Islamic religious knowledge from 1983 until early 1990s at the State Mosque in Kuching and in various villages and towns in Kuching Division. He wrote a book entitled Kepimpinan dan Kesempurnaan Sembahyang in 1998 and is now translating the text originally written in Jawi into Bahasa Malaysia.
First Bumiputra Woman M.A.
The first Bumiputra woman to obtain a masters degree, Norolah Bt. Tuanku Othman (Hajjah), was born in Kuching on 6 September 1938 and educated at Kampung Gersik Primary School (1947-1950), Madrasah Melayu Kuching (1951-1954), St. Teresa’s Convent (1955-1956) and Batu Lintang Training Centre (BLTC) in 1957-1959. After her diploma in TESL at Sydney University in 1961, she obtained her B.A. in English and M.A. in English and Linguistics from Victoria University, New Zealand in 1965 and 1966 respectively. She joined the Sarawak Government Service in 1957 as a teacher and also worked in the School Broadcasting Service from 1960 to 1967. In 1969, she became the first local to head the English Department at BLTC. The first woman to hold the various posts of Divisional Education Officer (Kuching Division) in 1980, Assistant Director of Schools in 1985, Chief Inspector of Schools in 1987 and Principal of BLTC from 1989 to 1993, she later became the first lady member of the Sarawak Public Service Commission on 1 December 1993.
(To be continued)
