Qifa Primary School is my alma mater! Since Thursday suddenly people are like, "Qifa?! What school is that?" It has always been a neighbourhood / "heartland" school, and in Singapore lingo that means an ordinary suburban school, not a "top" school where parents have to be on a waitlist to volunteer in order to get a chance to enrol their child into the said school. That for the first time a little-known neighbourhood school Qifa could produce a top student of the year leaves one asking, is it really so important to enrol your child into a top / famous school? Some parents even go to the extent of "donating" thousands of $$$ (and I mean 5-figure sums here, not 4!) in order to secure a seat in a "top" school. This year neighbourhood "heartland" schools grabbed the headlines, so I'd say, "Well done & keep it up!"
I could remember the year before my own PSLE, in 1989, Qifa was also in the news for producing one of the top students of that year. Since then it's been rather low profile I guess, but my classmates who are teachers now tell me Qifa enjoys a good reputation as a good school these days. I am very proud of my alma mater and have such fond memories of my 6 years in Qifa; in fact I feel the closest to my primary school classmates and our Form Teacher, Mrs J Lim who was with us all the way from Pri 4 to 6. I guess I miss the innocence of those days when grades were not everything (yet).
2010 will be the 20th anniversary of our Pri 6 "Graduation"; as always with a large group of people, some keep in contact, some have lost touch; some are no longer in town, and some - no one knows. Maybe it's a good idea to organise a class reunion of sorts? Now now who will be the organiser? Hmmm...
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