The Well Loved Cikgu Yusuf Hanipah (Now Datuk)

Cikgu (now Datuk) Yusuf Hanipah and my good friend (now Datu Haji) Photo by DHajiM during a recent investiture ceremony..

From 1959 to 1965 we were taught (mentored and brought up to be exact) by a wonderful teacher called Cikgu Yusof Hanipah. We as a bunch of boys then were delighted to have an "adult" sharing our lives. He lived in a one room with bathroom attached annex at the end of our hostel block.

In every way, he was the perfect adult any child would have trusted. In the most simple ways, he led us, he consoled us outside the classroom. In the classroom he taught us English and Bahasa Malaysia.

At that time we did not know that he was still trying to pass his Form Five privately. But we knew that he was studying right into the early hours of one or two. His little light in his room would be on. This example was extremely important because we learned to be hardworking like him....to study well into the night.

It was probably 1962 that he went to Scotland to take up some diploma studies and we missed him a lot. A year later he returned much to our delight. We did not want to lose such a wonderful teacher.

He was a true counsellor, even though we knew that he was not qualified . At that time, a piece of paper did not matter much, as long as the government accepted him it was ok with the school.
He was definitely a top notch counsellor. And we all confided in him, not that we had lots of problems. But it was definitely part of rite of passage that little boys would be able to talk "man to man" with an adult. We learned to be articulate and clear in thinking like him by socialising with him.

He mentored us by relating to us like a big brother, telling us stories about his own impoverished childhood as a result of the early death of his parents. As an orphan he had to struggle in the poor rural Mukah to get an education.l It was also by dint of hardwork that he made it to Form Three and then when he became a teacher, he had almost reached his dream.

He showed us that if you could walk your dream, the pot of gold at the end was yours. His later life would show every one how true it was for him, but not for many of the others.

In later years long after he left the school in 1965, we still continue to be on the lookout for news about him:how he became an Education Officer in Sibu, how he went to the United States to get his PhD. and finally becoming the Mayor of Kuching North.

So to little boys an older brother who could cross religious and cultural barriers would definitely have an impact on their lives. Many of us owed our journey in education to the teaching of a very great teacher like him. His career and success would be difficult to emulate.

Perhaps he is what many people would say,"He was born under a special star." A Buddhist would say, "It's his kharma."