Daily Lesson from Life 12 January 2009

Channel NewsAsia - Monday, January 12

SINGAPORE: The GCE O—Level results are out. Of the 36,640 students who sat for their examinations last year, 80.8 per cent secured at least five O—Level passes.


99.9 per cent, or 36,596 students, secured at least one O—Level pass.

The top student this year is Haw Sue Hern from CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls’ School. She scored 10 A1s. Nadiah Nadhirah Bte Abdul from Riverside Secondary School is the top Malay student, with seven A1s and two A2s.
Jharyathri Thiagarajah from Cedar Girls’ Secondary School is top Indian student, with nine A1s.

Last year, 4,254 or 32.4 per cent of the 2008 Secondary 4 Normal (Academic) cohort sat for at least one O—Level paper. Over 90 per cent of this group obtained at least one O—Level pass.

3,087 private candidates sat for the exams, with 88.7 per cent or 2,739 students getting their certificates."

Congratulation to the top students and those who passed their examination and within their expectations. As for those who did not do as well as expected keep in mind that this is just another test in your young life. In the next 20 or 40 or 60 years, there are many more examinations to take, many more tests presented by life to challenge us as we grow older and wiser!

You will hear a lot of inspirational tales about how the top students made their grades. About how some of the students succeeded splendidly against all odds. e.g. no money, broken home, helping out to put food on the table and younger siblings through school, etc, etc... You may also learned about how some were so disappointed with their results that they could not handled it!

Lessons for me are:

1. life is a long journey. The journey is like an endless marathon. Each will go at his or her own pace as the intention is to finish it with grace, with the knowledge that you have given your best and did good for yourself and your fellow human race! It is a race against yourself. Your own standard. Your own ideals. As long as it is not to do harm to another fellow human being, your race is a worthy one always!;

2. in life, there will be ups and downs. Be happy when you are ups but do not lose your head as it is just as natural to have a stiff fall or a gigantic climb up the next corner. When you do fall, get up and try again as long as you can figure out what did not work the last time and do not repeat the same mistake! Learn from other as well their painful failure so you avoid repeated their mistakes;

3. be willing to share how you succeed and even more importantly be willing to share with others what failures you have encountered and gone through so that they get to know about it in advance. It is up to them to decide if they will listen carefully and avoid the mistakes you made in their own quest. This willingness to share will rub off on others who will be inspired to share their stories voluntarily too. In this manner, we all benefit without making the mistakes that could have been avoided!

I wish all the students the best of luck as they move along the academic study of their life. For those who have to repeat the year or seek other opportunities, do not lose heart. There will always be something for your talent. Each is unique and each will find his or her niche in life as long as they think positive and move forward!