The school that taught Bapa Malaysia is 200 this year

Well preserved copies of school magazines from the early 1900s in PFS’s archive room. Photos: The Star/Goh Gaik Lee

A hundred years ago, Malaysia’s founding father Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj enrolled at Penang Free School (PFS). By then, the 13-year-old prince from Kedah had been to various schools but he was more interested in playing than studying. But his mother Makche Menjelara’s decision to send him to PFS in 1916 proved to be the turning point in Tunku’s youth.

Tunku became an awesome striker on the football team, a badminton division captain and a junior officer in the Army Cadet Corps. He went from being scout patrol leader to section leader. He did so well academically that he eventually received a government scholarship to study at the St Catherine College, Cambridge University.