Saluting pioneers of convent school education

Headmistresses and teachers from the Penang and Kulim convent schools during a visit to the Cameron Highlands Convent School in the 1970s.

THE long, treacherous four-month sea journey to Malaya by three French nuns in 1852 will be remembered as the Infant Jesus Sisters in Malaysia celebrate their 170th anniversary this year.

The nuns, Sister Gregoire, Sister Gaetau and Sister Appolinaire, were later joined by four other nuns who arrived in October the same year under the leadership of Rev Mother Mathilde, the nun with a steely resolve to establish schools and orphanages in what was then Malaya.