Mdm Lee Pek Hwa

From SJKC Lick Hung

Nominated by Lew Kar Keong

Name nominated : Madam Lee Pek Hwa , Headmistress of SJKC Lick Hung, Subang Jaya. On 6th March 2015, Madam Lee Pek Hwa was appointed as the School Headmistress of SJKC Lick Hung amidst the crisis which was brewing at that time between the PTA and the school administrators. Upon her appointment, she had to face the challenges of answering to the parents’ queries during the PTA AGM which was held the next day. However, she took everything in her stride. In her opening speech, she specifically said to those parents who were present, “Let’s move forward together for the greater and betterment of Lick Hung”. She acted so constructively and decisively on that day to calm down the commotion between the parents and the school administrators. Among the issues brought by parents to her attention were the lack of transparency in the PTA account, water dispensers which were supposedly available in 2012, air-conditioners for the Year Six classrooms, heavy school bags, toilets in poor condition, unhealthy foods sold in the canteen, poor traffic management and poor school compound or foot works. Without hesitation, Madam Lee started to resolve the issues one by one. Starting with heavy school bags and water dispensers, she managed to raise fund through voluntary and generous parents. With the fund collected, she ordered the installation of the water dispenser system at the courtyard for students to refill clean and safe drinking water. Next, she instructed that each classroom to be installed with lockers to enable students to keep their text books. This is a way to reduce the weight of the school bags. Not only that, school toilets and the cleanliness were upgraded. A canteen committee was also formed to look into issues brought up by the parents. All these were done in a short span of a few months. Madam Lee also brought up the suggestion of installing air conditioners to the classrooms and the school compound foot works issues to the Board of Governor. With the help of the Board of Governor, air-conditioners were installed in 2016 but the major renovation of the school compound ground works was only done in early 2018 due to the constraint of funds. The renovation done were beautifying the school areas, resolving the flood issues as well as levelling of all ground to avoid the hazard of tripping by students. To further foster the relationship with parents, Madam Lee has answered the Ministry of Education (MOE) call by urging parents to join Sarana Ibu Bapa in 2016. Many parents have involved themselves in carrying out activities organised by the school and this has further brought a closeness and an understanding between parents and teachers. In order for this programme to run efficiently, Madam Lee has divided the parents volunteers into six bureaus namely ‘Biro Akademik’, Biro Keceriaan & Pembangunan’, ‘Biro keselamatan & Kesihatan’, ‘Biro Kebajikan’, ‘Biro Ko-kurikulum’ and ‘Biro Penyelenggaraan’. Every bureau has its own scope and thus work is done more efficiently and effectively. ‘Biro Akademik’ is responsible in storytelling, assist in the library administration and ‘Di Zi Qui’ (the ancient teaching of the Chinese philosopher Confucius that emphasises the basic requisites for being a good person and guidelines for living in harmony with others). ‘Biro Keceriaan & Pembangunan’ is in charge of the school decorations and beautification. ‘Biro Keselamatan & Kesihatan’ will look after the school securities, manage the traffic flow every morning and afternoon and take care of the children safety. ‘Biro Kebajikan’ is handling the welfare of the students and teachers, in charge of Teacher’s Day and Children’s Day celebrations. ‘Biro Ko-kurikulum’ is to oversee the performance of the coaches of the extra-curricular activities and assist teachers in competitions. ‘Biro Penyelenggaraan’ is to make sure that the facilities are upkept properly and to get contractors to perform repair works where necessary. The number of parents involved in Sarana Ibu Bapa is about 356 persons as to date. The bureaus will also jointly organize Chinese traditional festival celebrations with the school like Chinese New Year, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid- Autumn Festival and Dong Zi Festival. Every year before the school re-opens, Madam Lee makes sure the school is clean and ready for the new schooling year by having a clean-up. She calls teachers, parents and students to work hand in hand to ensure that the students come back to a clean classroom when the semester starts. Character is reflected in our behaviours, and often our behaviours are influenced by our beliefs. By defining our virtues, we solidify our beliefs about our values. Once defined, we have a blueprint to guide our actions as we strive to live a virtuous life. Madam Lee always reminds her students to instil the three good virtues in life which are Good in Speaking, Good in Action, Good in Thinking in their lives. For her, students should not only be good in academic or in extra-curricular activities but also must be of good character. Thus, every Monday during assembly, she would share an inspirational phrase or sentence at the end of her speech to encourage or motivate the students. In order to make study more interesting, Madam Lee had proposed a competition among the students to create the school mascots. Huan Huan & Lek Lek were born in 2017. Both resembled the buildings of SJKC Lick Hung dressed in school uniform with school badges. Huan Huan, the female character dressed in dark blue pinafore with white shirt while Lek Lek, the male character is in white shirt and blue shorts. The names Huan Huan and Lek Lek both mean happy in Chinese. It is Madam Lee’s hope that every student in SJKC Lick Hung is happy to be in school. To further cultivate the love for the school, the motto “Lick Hung is my home and I love my home” is introduced. Her efforts in promoting happy learning among students and embedding the love for their school have gained supports from teachers and parents. Apart from promoting happiness and love in studies, Madam Lee also promotes confidence among students by creating the Speaker’s Corner at the beginning of this year to enable pupils to practise their public speaking skills on any topics of their choice every Friday morning. Besides that, she also promotes recycling programme by encouraging students to bring old newspapers and aluminium cans to school every Thursday. Caring for the welfare of the teachers has always been Madam Lee’s priority. Every year, there are school trips for the teachers sponsored by the school PTA & BOG. There is also Teachers’ Appreciation Dinner where teachers are pampered with a great dinner, lucky draws and performances on the occasion of Teachers’ Day . On that night, teachers who serve 10 years, 15 years, 20 years and so on are awarded with the Long Service Award while those with full attendance receive Excellence Attendance Award. Madam Lee does not only care for the teachers’ welfare but also the students’. For the needy families, they can apply for exemptions from paying school tuition fees and fees for extra-curricular activities. An average of 30 students are granted the exemptions every year. Students who pass the UPSR examination with flying colours will be rewarded and the school will also assist in finding scholarship to lessen the financial burden of these students. Students who are good in extra-curricular activities are given sponsorship on their travelling and registration expenses when they represent the school for competitions. Every year, Children’s Day Celebration is held in school. The reason why Children’s Day is celebrated is to show the importance of giving love, attention and affection to children. Madam Lee loves her pupils and she honours them. During one of her speeches, she said, “The children of today will make the world of tomorrow. The way we bring them up will determine the future of the world.” With the assistance of the BOG, she has successfully upgraded the school facilities through various projects. The projects are the construction of the School History Gallery, renovation of the school library, upgrading of the basketball court flooring, installation of the large LED screen in the school hall, building the Teachers’ Rest Room at the canteen, upgrading the students waiting area beside the canteen and also upgrading the walkways and drainage. All the projects done are a prove that Madam Lee is a proactive and efficient headmistress. Within four years in SJKC Lick Hung, under her leadership, she has not only maintained but constructed and upgraded the school to a cleaner, better and more conducive environment for the pupils to study. In early July 2018, SJKC Lick Hung was chosen to participate in the ELEPRO programme. The School Principal of Annandale State School from Australia, Ms Jan Coopers came to visit the school to understand the syllabus and the teaching and learning of Malaysian education system. In return, at the end of August, Madam Lee visited Ms Jan’s school in Australia. After returning from Australia, she brought back with her lots of ideas and made proposals of improvement where applicable to the school. One of the ideas which Madam Lee would like to implement is changing the present classrooms to the 21st Century classrooms. With the help of the PTA, two classrooms are now equipped with the 21st Century Learning tables and chairs. Madam Lee is working hard on getting funds to fully equip all the classrooms with these tables and chairs. SJKC Lick Hung is indeed fortunate to have Madam Lee as the headmistress. She has restored SJKC Lick Hung to its former glory. During these four years, the discipline of the students and the percentage passes of the students in the UPSR examination have improved tremendously. We salute her for her passion, dedication and hard work in education and her aspiring actions to groom the students of SJKC Lick Hung to excel in all aspects. It is inspiring to see her always full of energy and enthusiasm to achieve the best that she can in whatever that she does. We believe that lots of teachers will set her as an example. Madam Lee has also earned a lot of respect from many parents for all the things that she has done and achieved. Madam Lee will be retiring this coming July and we hope that she will continue to contribute in whatever field she might be interested in. We are definitely going to miss her and wish her all the best in her future undertakings. “Every student in this school is my child and I’m responsible for influencing their parents to teach them well.” – Madam Lee Pek Hwa