Review of Speech at 19th Student Council Investiture

Friday, August 11, 2006

Aik Fong's Speech at the 19th Student Council Investiture on 20th July 2006

Eighteen years ago, when some of you were not even born, I took the pledge to serve the college as a Student Councillor.
Here I am today, as the President of the SRJC Alumni Association, sticking to my pledge to serve the college.
I am not trying to scare both the incoming and outgoing student councils. No, you are not bound by any contract to serve the college for the rest of your life.

However, it was through my tenure in the Student Council that I learnt to serve.

It was not easy to be a pioneer Student Councillor and it still won’t be easy for you to be in the 19th Student Council.

Back when the college just started, the major task at hand was to build a strong college identity and spirit. There were just around 20 students who had applied to Serangoon JC as their first choice college.

So, what did we do to gel over 600 students who didn’t want to be in SRJC in the first place? We had a rather long orientation programme. Instead of a college day, we had a college month. After the promo examinations, the entire school went on a college picnic at Pasir Ris Park. We had a lot of fun, but we also knew that we had to study. Considering the fact that we had our lectures in Technical Workshops, considering the fact that we had very little amenities for a junior college, we were not surprised by the casualties amongst us along the way towards the college’s first GCE ‘A’ level examinations. Nevertheless, we also managed to produce students with good ‘A’ level results.

Do we have a strong college identity now? How’s our college spirit? Well, the challenge is for you, every SRJCian, especially the student leaders, to work together to bring Serangoon Junior College to greater heights and to make everyone proud of being an SRJCian.

There are various ways for you to become proud of SRJC – you can achieve top academic accolades or you can excel in your CCA – what’s most important is for you to leave SRJC knowing that you have become a better person. You have to develop your character: learn to serve the college and the community. But, do not become subservient; do not become a blind follower. Give feedback whenever you see something not right. Be able to accept the views of others. Initiate changes where necessary. Be willing to embrace changes. Don’t shirk from leadership position and don’t feel bad when you have to step aside for others to take the lead.

I will now try to share with you some of my experiences that exemplify the values I learnt from SRJC.After graduating from SRJC, I enlisted for National Service as required of all male citizens. However, I must confess that I am not an army freak. Nevertheless, I believe in the importance of National Service and I can spend a whole day talking to you about National Service, but I will keep that till I get invited for Total Defence Day.What I would like to relate to you about my NS stint is one particular incident. About 6 months into my NS, during a dialogue session just before I graduated from my vocation training to be a Military Policeman, all the trainees were given the opportunity to speak their mind about the training. Nobody spoke for a while despite the officers’ encouragement for feedback. Then I raised my hand. I spoke up for a fellow trainee who was not allowed to graduate due to his health problem. Unfortunately, the bureaucratic rule then did not allow the officer-in-command to change his decision. While my speaking up did not help my fellow trainee, it was still a righteous act that I never regretted. Why did I speak up in the first place? It was because of a sense of righteousness which was cultivated from the injustice that I had seen and felt simply because no one spoke up for us.

My first year at NUS was uneventful except for the fact that I was the only guy in a class with twenty-one girls and, at the end of that first year, I was asked to take on a leadership position in the next orientation programme – the chairmanship for the Rag-and-Flag committee. There were a few of committees set up to run a series of orientation activities, but nobody wanted the job of Chairman for the Rag-and-Flag committee – a job with no fun and lots of hard work. I knew I could do the job and accepted the offer on the condition that I was the vice-chairman even though I would perform the roles of the chairman. It would seem a rather stupid decision to most people. Well, if I could turn back the clock, I would still make the same decision. Why? Because I knew that my weakness then was the fact that I wasn’t really very active in the faculty club and I needed greater authority to run such a tough committee. So, in name, a more prominent fellow undergraduate was appointed the chairman, knowing that I would be the one running the committee. We managed to raise a record sum of money for charity and retained the Overall Rag-and-Flag championship trophy for that year. Knowing my own strengths and weaknesses was a very important contributing factor to my success there, but a bigger factor was the experience and attitude I brought with me from my involvement in the 1st SRJC Student Council.

I won’t say that being in the Student Council had made me a great leader. But it was through the Student Council that I had opened my eyes to both good and bad leadership qualities in myself and in others. To be able to appreciate the good leadership qualities of others and also be able to admit the flaws of one’s own leadership skill, is critical to a truly great leader – learn from the good and change the not so good.“Desere Servire - To Learn To Serve” became my personal motto. I never stopped learning even after I graduated from University. I don’t have enough money for an MBA yet, but I do have enough money to continue to learn through books and, most importantly, through self-reflection. My work experiences in my earlier careers were extremely valuable to me, but they did not give me the satisfaction as compared to my current career – teaching, an almost sacred service to the community (I am sure your teachers will agree with me). Passing knowledge to my students gives me a high, but it is nothing compared to helping my students discover themselves and develop into better people like how I discovered myself and became a better person during my two years in SRJC.

Whenever I had gatherings with my classmates from SRJC or meet fellow SRJCians through the Alumni, we would still talk about our principals, vice-principals, teachers and even some of the non-teaching staff here. We became a family when we joined SRJC and I am very glad to know that all of you are now part of my extended family.

With that, I would like to wish the 19th Student Council a fruitful year ahead and the 18th Student Council a bright future as they embark on the next phase of their lives.

Thank you.

By Tan Aik Fong

President of SRJC Alumni Association