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Dad, Daughter Graduate Together
By Choong Kwee Kim, The Star Online
Penang, Malaysia
August 6, 2004
ALL IN THE FAMILY: Lee and Hooi Ling showing each other their Master's degree scrolls after the convocation ceremony in Penang yesterday.
Hard work paid off for a retired teacher and his daughter who both received their Master's degree in different disciplines at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) yesterday.
Lee Nai Loo, 58, who formerly taught at Chung Ling High School, took up a Master of Education (Educational Psychology) degree for the sake of gaining knowledge while his daughter Hooi Ling, 26, pursued a Master of Science (Pharmacy) degree.
"I believe in life-long learning but I find it harder to concentrate as I grow older.
"However, my younger course-mates were helpful and treated me as an equal," Lee said after receiving his scroll from USM Pro-Chancellor Tan Sri Razali Ismail at the university's 33rd Convocation ceremony.
Lee, a father of two, said he motivated his daughter by studying hard himself and was grateful to the university for giving a retiree like him a chance to pursue his studies.
Another hard working father, Lakshmi Gandhan Sesha Salam, 51, completed his Master of Public Administration degree while working full-time as a unit audit management administrative assistant at the Penang Municipal Council.
The father of two started work at the council in 1976 as a survey assistant and obtained a Law degree in 1997 as he fancied being a lawyer.
"But I got involved in too many social commitments as I was the trustee of the Penang Hill Hindu temple and became the building chairman to oversee the temple renovations," he said.
Another elderly Master's graduate, Ahmad Bakri Abdul Ghaffar, 62, did not mind going into the rivers in Perak to collect sediment samples for his civil engineering studies.
"It was sometimes tiring but I was interested in the subject," said the father of three.
Ahmad Bakri said graduates who had acted haughtily because of their degrees "made me want to go to university too to prove that I can also achieve the same thing."
Some 1,699 students received their scrolls yesterday out of 6,355 students who would be graduating throughout the five-day convocation.
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