Double joy for mother of twins

KEPALA BATAS: It was double joy for Faridah Harun when her twins, Nur Fatehah Md Shakur and Nur Fatin Nadirah, were among 72 students of SMK (Agama) Al-Irshad who scored nine straight As in the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) examination.
The 46-year-old New Straits Times Press employee, who works at the Prai production plant, cried when the results were announced at the school hall yesterday.

Faridah, accompanied by her husband, Md Shakur Tajuddin, 50, a security assistant at Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd, thanked the teachers and the school for her daughters' success.

"I am thankful to the school, its teachers and the parent-teacher association for all their hard work," she said.

Nur Fatehah and Nur Fatin scored As in Bahasa Melayu, English, Mathematics, Science, History, Geography, Living Skills, Islamic Studies and Arabic Communications.

Nur Fatehah, who aspires to be a scientist, said there were advantages to having a twin as it allowed them to share notes and discuss lessons at home.

"We spent about two hours daily revising our lessons."

Nur Fatin attributed their success to their parents, teachers and classmates who had supported them.

School principal Salmah Ishak said 170 students sat the PMR examination this year and the number of students who scored 9As increased to 72 from 51 last year, while another 28 scored eight straight As.

At SMJK Jit Sin, Bukit Mertajam, a Malay student was among 238 students who scored eight straight As.

Nur Qurratuaini Sobri, 15, from Juru, proved that studying in a Chinese school could work wonders for her academic achievement.

Nur Qurratuaini, the third of four children, said she had only targeted six or seven As.

She said she fell in love with Chinese schools after her mother, Che Noorlia Shariff, 45, enrolled her into a Chinese kindergarten. Nur Qurratuaini then went to SRJK(C) Mak Mandin in Butterworth before furthering her secondary studies at SMJK Jit Sin.

Principal Tan Kim Tong said the school achieved 99.82 per cent passes out of 553 students who took the examination.

(Edit:Ruby)