The Year 2018 Part II of VI - Years 1960’s

Basing on past events during the decade 1961 to 1969, I have made a resolution for this year, 2018, (Resolution # 4) to master the technique of providing on-line education on the areas of specialisation that I possess.

Why did I choose to have such a resolution, you may well ask?

Well, I have said that teaching others and helping others to succeed have always been my lifetime desire. During the early 1960’s, I was impressed by Mr. Chips in the novel “Goodbye Mr Chips” by James Hilton. Later, after I had qualified as a Chartered Surveyor on a Singapore Government’s Colombo Plan Scholarship, I started the Housing Board’s Apprentice Schemes for the training of Quantity Surveyors, Property Valuers and Property Maintenance Officers. At the same time, I assisted in the development of the Professional Diploma and later the University Degree in Property Valuation, initially at the Singapore Polytechnic that later at the National University of Singapore.

I plan to be competent in presenting on-line courses for the public by the end of the year 2018. If you think you are able to assist me towards this goal of mine, please step forward. I shall need the assistance of many to have this dream fulfilled.

Coming back to the events that happened during in the ten years of the 1960s - events that helped to shape my future career life, perhaps the best start was a piece of trivial news that appeared only in Wikipedia thus

” :In 1959, Singapore attained self-rule and the People’s Action Party (PAP) was elected to power. With the government’s objective of providing every child with at least ten years of education from age six, large numbers of teachers were needed to cope with the unprecedented expansion in school enrolment. Consequently, the two types of courses at the Teachers Training College (TTC) for primary school teachers – three-year part-time normal course and two-year full-time certificate course – were merged into a single three-year in-service part-time certificate course in January 1960. The objective of introducing the unified part-time training scheme was to provide a steady supply of qualified teachers to the primary schools, which were then increasing at an average rate of one per month. Under the revamped training scheme, all trainee teachers had to carry out school duties for half a day and attend a two-hour lecture at the TTC on a daily basis during weekdays. They were also required to teach on Saturdays.“

It was a Friday evening during the month of October 1960 that I mentioned casually to the father of one of the children whom I was giving Mathematics tuition to that I was unhappy with the merging of the two courses at the Teachers Training College. (I had just completed the first of two years of the Certificate Course and would have to be transferred to the Normal Course of three years, with another additional year of studies at TTC).

This father whom I shall refer to here as Ken, was an important member of the Chinatown’s 08 gang or triad and he had asked me to assist him in organising street rallies for the PAP during the Party’s election campaigns. Both of us, Ken and I, were in the Tanjong Pagar Electorate (Mr. Lee Kuan Yew) and we also helped in the Kreta Ayer Electorate (Dr. Goh Keng Swee).

As a direct result of this perchance conversation, I found myself resigning from Primary School teaching to start as a Trainee Quantity Surveyor in the most established Quantity Surveying practice in those days, Langdon & Every (Far East) and I worked there from 28th November 1960.

Then, after making progress in the “working-up” stages of the Quantity Surveying profession for eight months, I was offered a Quantity Surveying Assistant’s position at the Housing and Development Board’s office in Queenstown, Singapore on the condition that if I could pass the first of three professional examinations of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), I would be offered a Scholarship to complete my studies abroad.

That was the start of a total career change in my life.

 

 

Later in 1963 after I was successful in the 1962 First Examination of the RICS, I was awarded a Colombo Plan Scholarship by the Singapore Government to complete my qualification and training, not in Quantity Surveying, but in Property Valuation. This I was successful by May 1966 (Final RICS Examination in Property Valuation) and rejoined the Housing and Development Board as the first local Contracts Officer.

In the meanwhile, in September 1963, I married by childhood sweetheart and I had to leave her in Singapore for almost a year before she joined me to stay together in London. Our eldest daughter was born in the Hospital of the Royal Borough of Kensington.

During my stay in London, I had gathered working experiences as a Property Valuer (Grade III) to the London Borough of Southwark as well as a Property Valuation Assistant at the London County Council.

 

Back at the Housing and Development Board, I continued with my studies in Quantity Surveying on a part time basis and qualified as an additional Chartered Quantity Surveyor in 1969.

 

By the year 1970, I had served the Singapore Government, not only at the Housing and Development Board, but also as a Board Member of the Singapore Tourism Board, a member of the Singapore Polytechnic in the development of the professional Property Valuation course and later served in committees related to education, land development, Jurong Town Corporation, Mass Transit Transportation and Marine Parade reclamation.