THEY WILL ASK thee as to what they should spend on others. Say: "Whatever of your wealth you spend shall [first] be for your parents, and for the near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer; and whatever good you do, verily, God has full knowledge thereof." - Al-Baqarah (2:215)
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Saturday 12 May 2012

Form 6? Matriculation? Polytechnic? Private college? Industrial institutes?

Having visited Maznah on Thursday, yesterday I decided to visit 2 of my earlier clients, Fuzi and Aini. After having to face a complicated case like Maznah’s, one way to keep my sanity is to visit the families whose lives have improved. It helps to keep me motivated to continue with the voluntary work I’m doing. No doubt Fuzi’s & Aini’s problems when they were first referred to us Buddies were different, but still, seeing that they are living a better life now, somehow gives me some sense of satisfaction.

After getting some groceries loaded into my car, off I went to visit Fuzi. It had been quite some time since I last went to visit her. Once upon a time I used to visit her on a monthly basis, but with the financial help she has been getting, her life is more stable now, so I have reduced my visits to her house. But when I do visit, I do make it a point to bring along some groceries for her family.

Fuzi’s eldest daughter, Wina, was getting ready to go for tuition, while Fuzi’s youngest, Iwan, was watching TV. He looks a lot more like a boy now. Previously he had longer hair, and with his dimple and all, he looked oh so sweet like a girl. Now that he has started going to a kindergarten, Fuzi got his hair cut. They seemed to be doing okay. However Fuzi did mention that the only thing that’s giving her a headache now is her 2nd daughter, who is now in form four. For the past 2 or 3 weeks, she had been talking to herself a lot. I told Fuzi to go to the girl’s school, meet & discuss with her teacher to find out if she has any problems she has not been telling anyone.

While I was at Fuzi’s house, Rajan, one of the sponsored children, called me up. He had earlier been offered a place at a matriculation college, and I did advise him to accept it, but the offer was for accounting line, not science. Rajan wants to take up science as he is interested to do engineering. But the results of his science subjects weren’t good enough to earn him a place in science. So he called to ask if he could opt for form 6 science instead. He said he’d go to PPD immediately if I gave him the green light. I had known all along his interest was engineering, and I also knew his science subjects weren’t good enough, but seeing that he seemed determined to take up science, I told him to go and discuss with the PPD officer or with his school teacher. If they agreed to allow him to take up form 6 science stream, then by all means, go ahead.

From Fuzi’s house, I headed straight to Aini’s house. Her daughter, Eira, who had decided to register for form 6 while waiting for the results of her application to polytechnics, needed to use a laptop in school. Since I have an old laptop, which had not been used for some time, I decided to lend Eira my laptop.

I have always felt comfortable visiting Aini at her home. Her boys would usually shy away, but Aini and Eira treated me like family. In fact I can joke around with Eira just like she was one of my own nieces. I found out that she too, like me, loves adventurous activities… so I think we will get along just fine.

Anyway, Eira seems happy to continue doing form 6 even though the results of her polytechnic applications are not known yet. I guess if she is offered a place, whether or not she will accept them will depend on what course she gets. Otherwise, it’s form 6 all the way.

It rained heavily while I was at Aini’s house, so I had quite a long chat with both Aini and Eira. After a while, Rajan called again. He said after speaking to the teacher, he was advised to take up matriculation because the teacher felt that with the kind of results Rajan got for his science subjects in SPM, the boy may not be able to cope with the science subjects in form 6. So, yes, it’s back to matriculation in accounting stream for the boy.

When I got home, Hana called. Earlier this week, when Hana asked my favour to check if her daughter Ayu managed to get a place in any of the IPTAs, I checked and found out that Ayu failed to get a place. So it was sort of decided that Ayu would register for form 6. And register she did, bought the uniforms, paid the fees etc, and suddenly yesterday she received a text message saying that she had been offered a place at a college (a college in affiliation with UiTM) to do Diploma in Accounting. The offer letter would be sent to her soon. Hana called to ask if she should accept it. It was hard for me to give any advice there and then as I didn’t have much knowledge about the college Hana mentioned. But she did mentioned that Ayu was interested to take up the course, and so I told her to just wait for the offer letter to come first.

Meanwhile I decided to find out more info from the internet, and managed to get more info from the college’s website. True enough, the courses there are UiTM courses, and in fact, when students complete the courses, the diplomas will be presented during UiTM’s convocation.

So I guess it’s a safe offer for Ayu to accept.

No more changes I hope. Every time the children call up to seek my advise regarding their choice of further studies, I’m the one who ends up confused.

I still have one more child who has to wait though. Azlan, Sofie’s eldest son, will only know the results of his application end of this month. He didn’t qualify to apply for IPTA or even polytechnic, so I submitted his application for industrial training institutes. The boy has left it totally up to me to decide for him which course he should take up. Well, his interest is definitely in the automotive field, so I do hope he will get one of the courses I helped to apply for him.

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