Seri Insan school celebrates Chinese New Year
KOTA KINABALU: Understanding of diversity in culture and traditions among children will ensure religious and racial tolerance.
This can be assured through participation in diverse festivities celebrated by people from different ethnic and racial background.
In this respect, Seri Insan Private School also known as Smart school, celebrated Chinese New Year yesterday with a gathering of students, parents and the teaching team for lunch and a dragon and lion dance performance on the school compound.
Its chairman, Datin Sharifah Habsah Habib Alawi, said she had always advocated promotion of racial tolerance among her students, adding that such awareness had to be instilled at a young age.
According to her, the school has not only been known to have outstanding students, with empathise on personal development but also academic excellence coupled with preparation for life outside of the classroom.
“This include understanding and tolerance for other people’s culture and traditions,” she stressed.
To this end, the school in Kolombong, Inanam has carried out various similar programmes during festivities such as the Harvest festival and Hari Raya celebrations among others, Habsah said, adding that participation from the 300 strong students and pupils of that school have been tremendously encouraging.
“The parents have always been very supportive of our endeavours in carrying out the various character building programmes,” she said.
“Our students’ parents have been helpful, bringing food and goodies to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Seventy percent of the students here are Chinese and as such the line of goodies for the pot luck from the parents have been good.”
“We also carry out similar activities during the Hari Raya celebration and the Harvest Festival, and we always evoke the same level of interest,” Habsah said.
On the school, she said besides ensuring excellent academic performance they also ensure that students are able to speak and understand English as it is an important language for international communication.
“Our Seri Insan students are well spoken in this language,” she said, adding that they are applying the Malaysian education syllabus but also add knowledge with Australian teaching materials on students to enhance their knowledge and capabilities.
“They also sit for SPM examination,” she said.
“To ensure all students are able to progress at their own pace, we ensure that they have the full attention of the teachers. Therefore we have 45 teachers to tend to 350 students, which means that each class only caters to 15 or at most 20 students at any one time.”
They also carry out motivational talks for the students. Information on the school can be acquired from their website.