Compiled by FATIMAH ZAINAL and C.ARUNO
TWO “muhibbah” basketball teams made up of pupils from SJK(C) Manong and SK Manong made history in the Kuala Kangsar school district by winning first and second place in the under-12 boys and girls categories, reported Sin Chew Daily.
The teams were formed as SJK(C) Manong, categorised as a “micro school”, had trouble finding enough pupils to form a team.
School head Beh Chaw Hong said they only had 46 pupils and it was made worse by the fact that only those aged between 10 and 12 were eligible to take part.
According to Beh, the school’s basketball coach and teacher Tan Hao Long suggested they try “loaning” players from neighbouring SK Manong.
“I went to meet SK Manong’s headmaster with the plan and he did agree to it immediately.
“He even said it was a great idea as pupils of different races would get to interact and this could help in nation building.
“This was how the ‘muhibbah basketball team’ was formed!” Beh said.
SK Manong’s school head Ismail Dzlan Yahaya was all for fostering discipline in addition to encouraging pupils of different races to work together.
“As Cikgu Tan required pupils to start training from 7am daily, there was some initial backlash from parents. However, we urged parents to support their children’s training,” he said.
Beh said the players formed a strong bond after several months of intense training.
“They won one match after the other and made history, becoming the first impromptu teams to emerge as the champion and runner-up (in their respective divisions),” he said.
> A vocational college student turned the classroom into a mixed martial arts (MMA) ring on Oct 9 when he tried to apply a chokehold on his lecturer in Foshan City, Guangdong province, China.
It all began after the lecturer seized his handphone as he was playing games on the gadget.
In a video that has since gone viral, the student, in his haste to get the handphone back, was seen applying a chokehold twice on the lecturer who put up a struggle but did not retaliate.
Several students immediately went up to pull them apart, China Press reported.
The video has been viewed more than 10 million times in less than 48 hours. Several people were outraged over the incident as they sympathised with the lecturer who did not fight back.
According to the daily, a spokesman of the vocational college said it has since taken action against the student.
The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.
