Schools in Old Chinatown Chinatown Was Once Home to Some of Singapore’S First Chinese Schools
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Chinatown Stories | Updated as of August 2019 Schools in Old Chinatown Chinatown was once home to some of Singapore’s first Chinese schools. Gan Eng Seng School Gan Eng School was founded in 1885 by Gan Eng Seng, a Malacca-born Chinese businessman and philanthropist and one of Singapore’s early pioneers. As Gan himself was not granted much access to education when young, once he was successful, he wanted to create education opportunities for the poor. The school operated out of some shophouses on Telok Ayer Street, offering free education to children from poor families who lived in the area. At the time it was called Anglo Chinese Free School (it has no connection with the other Anglo-Chinese School founded a year later by Bishop William F. Oldham). In 1888, the school became an aided school, benefitting from government assistance. The following year the government gave the school a new site on Telok Ayer Street. The construction of the new building was funded by Gan Eng Seng. On 4 April 1893, the new school was officially opened by the Governor, Sir Cecil Clementi Smith, and remained at the site until 1941. English and Chinese were taught in the school but after the founder passed away in 1899, it became an English school. Faced with financial difficulties, it had to stop functioning as a free school, and for a while, fees were charged. In 1923, the school was renamed Gan Eng Seng School in its founder’s honour. In 1938, Gan Eng Seng School became a government school. Plans were made for a new school building on Anson Road, but the threat of World War II prevented the development from coming to fruition. In May 1941, part of the Telok Ayer Street building was deemed unsafe for occupation, so classes were moved temporarily to Sepoy Lines Malay School at Park Road near Chinatown and the nearby Pearl’s Hill School. Later that year, war broke out in Singapore. During the Japanese Occupation, the school stopped operating. It was not until 13 May 1946 that Gan Eng Seng School reopened. After 1947 the school relocated several times before moving to its present location at Henderson Road in Bukit Merah. It became a co-educational school in 1987. In 1997, the National Heritage Board (NHB) declared the school’s founding site on Telok Ayer Street a national historical site. Among Gan Eng Seng School’s contributions to the school system was the implementation of bilingual learning in Chinese and English, a move that predated the present bilingual policy in the education system. Page 1 of 6 Chinatown Stories | Updated as of August 2019 Yeung Ching School Founded in 1905, Yeung Ching School (养正学校) was in its early days based out of some terrace houses on Park Road. The name “养正” means to “nurture the young with the correct values”. The school was established in 1905 with funds raised by Cantonese community leaders, including pioneer dentist and philanthropist Look Yan Kit, journalist Ye Jiyun, and Ho Siak Kuan, who worked as an English-Chinese translator for the British colonial government in the 1880s and was later the assistant secretary for Chinese affairs. Yeung Ching School began as a private school for Cantonese boys, with Cantonese being the medium of instruction. While the school taught recitation, writing, and the dictation of the classics, it did not offer art, music or sports. Besides day classes, it also offered night classes to children who were poor or past school-going age. Many of its early teachers came from Guangzhou in China. In 1908, Yeung Ching School had an enrolment of 100. Over the next few years, it adopted a new syllabus that was used by schools in China after the Republic of China was formed. In 1912, Mandarin became the language of instruction and English was introduced as a subject. Girls were also allowed to enrol for classes. In 1918, the ever-growing school moved to a mansion on a small hill on Club Street. Between 1916 and the time of the Japanese invasion of Singapore in 1941, Yeung Ching School faced a number of challenges. For one, the girls’ department could no longer be sustained due to the school’s financial difficulties. As such, the female students moved to Nan Hua Girls’ School (南华女学校) in 1917. It was not until 1923 that girls were readmitted to Yeung Ching. However, in 1927, prior to the global economic downturn, the colonial government announced that girls had to leave boys’ schools. The classes for girls were discontinued and the female students moved to a new school, Jing Fang Girls’ School (静方女子学校), which was specially set up on Neil Road in 1928 to accommodate them (the school ceased to exist after the school compound was destroyed by a bomb during the Japanese invasion in 1942). The school struggled financially, especially during the economic downturn, and eventually appealed to the colonial government for a subsidy. By 1941, just prior to the war, Yeung Ching School had 900 students, the only Chinese school in Singapore to have such a high enrolment. It closed during the Japanese Occupation and resumed normal classes after the Japanese surrendered in 1945. By this time after the war, enrolment was 1,800. To accommodate the growing number of students, plans were made for a new building on the same site. The school was completed in 1965 and cost more than $600,000. It was five stories Page 2 of 6 Chinatown Stories | Updated as of August 2019 high, and included facilities like 48 classrooms, a science laboratory, a library, a hall and conference rooms, in addition to the usual staff room and canteen. In 1970, the school became co-educational. Students also had the option of taking Chinese or English as their first language. Between 1985 and 1987, Yeung Ching School merged with Telok Ayer and Peck Seah Primary Schools. However, it retained its original name and its government-aided status. In 1988, the school relocated to Serangoon Avenue 3, became a government school and adopted the hanyu pinyin name, Yangzheng Primary School (养正学校). Yeung Ching boasts a few famous alumni, among them the music composer Xian Xing Hai (best known for the Yellow River Cantata, upon which the Yellow River Concerto for piano and orchestra is based); the popular Cantonese storyteller Li Fu Hong, also known as Lee Dai Soh; and the late oil painter Lee Man Fong. Another prominent alumnus is Dr Ho Nai Kiong, a retired paediatrician who wrote about Yeung Ching School’s founders in the book, Records of Old Yeung Ching, published in 2017. The old Club Street site where the school used to be is now a condominium. However, some of the school’s old steps remain. In 2009, alumni Mr Lo Hock Ling and Professor Phua Kok Khoo lobbied the NHB to give the steps historic status, and succeeded. The steps were declared a Marked Historic Site and featured a signboard telling the history of the school. Both men have fond memories of the old building. “They were the steps I walked up every day, from Monday to Friday, and then Saturday and Sunday too, when we came to school to play. It was my home. My precious memories were formed here,” says Lo. Of his alma mater, Phua says: “Everyone knew Yangzheng was one of the best Chinese schools in the early days, if not the best.” Ai Tong School Ai Tong School was established in 1912. In its early days it operated out of a Methodist church on Boon Tat Street, not too far from Thian Hock Heng Temple. The curriculum was similar to the curriculum used in the Chinese education system. Originally, the school had an enrolment of 30, but over the next five years this increased to 120. To cope with the increasing enrolment, the school moved to its own campus at 209 Telok Ayer Street in 1917. On two occasions over the next few years, high operating costs, coupled with a lack of funds and growing debt, threatened the school’s existence. Philanthropist Tan Kah Kee intervened, making a generous contribution that saved the school from financial crisis and eventually undertaking the entire responsibility of funding the school’s expenses. Page 3 of 6 Chinatown Stories | Updated as of August 2019 In 1929, the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan (SHHK), a clan association, took over the management of the school. Under the new administration, the school experienced a rejuvenation and enrolment increased. A branch school was also set up on the former premises of Gan Eng Seng School in 1946. At this point, enrolment was 470 but about a year later this grew to 1,600. In 1950, Ai Tong School began accepting girls and became a co-educational school. In 1955, the main school moved into the premises of SHHK at 137 Telok Ayer Street. In 1957 it became a government-aided school. By 1961, the school’s enrolment was 2,360, the highest it had ever been, after taking in students from Sansui and Tong Hua Schools, which had both closed. However, over the next decade or so, enrolment dropped gradually, due to urban development and the falling popularity of Chinese school education Ai Tong School moved to the satellite town of Ang Mo Kio in 1981, and in 1992 it was relocated to Bright Hill Drive. Chong Hock Girls’ School In 1915, Chong Hock Girls’ School was set up within the compound of Thian Hock Keng Temple, which was the most important Hokkien Temple at the time, on Telok Ayer Street.