Patterns of a professor

Class act: Prof Jayakaran says that teachers are like private dancers who perform for their private audience - their students.

THE gap in time is wide. Scores of years have whisked past and many things have happened in between which have changed the very face of the national education scene. And yet when Prof Dr Jayakaran Mukundan, a recipient of the 2013 National Academic Award for teaching is asked about the influences in his life that had contributed to this outstanding success, his reply is immediate.

“My Standard One teacher Miss Ong Siok Lay,” he says without hesitation and offers me the correct spelling of her name.