Setapak High School... The Story That You Should Be Proud..

Happy Anniversary 

12 Jan 1955 -12 Jan 2018

Setapak High School (Malay: "Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Tinggi, Setapak") is a secondary school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Established in 1955, it is an all-boys school, with the exception of the coed Sixth Form. In the local community, the school is more fondly known as High School and Setapak High. When it was first established, it was located in High Street, Kuala Lumpur (hence its name), before moving to its current location in Setapak in 1963.

The school is very active in the sports arena, especially in the inter-school hockey championships.

HISTORY

The school was established in 1955 with the name High Street School, which was located at High Street (later Jalan Bandar, now Jalan Tun H S Lee) in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. It was opened on 12 January 1955 by Dato' Othman bin Mohamed, the Menteri Besar (chief minister) of Selangor at that time. Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah, the Sultan of Selangor, officially opened High Street School on 11 April 1955.

Mr. Luke, the Selangor Education Officer, was instrumental in the formation of the school. The first headmaster was Mr. Herman M de Souza, a former teacher of VI. The school's motto was "Lead By Leading" and the medium of instruction was English.

The school complex, built in 1893, formerly housed Victoria Institution (VI) until 1929 when VI moved to its new premises in Petaling Hill.[1] The Technical College (now known as Universiti Teknologi Malaysia) occupied the complex in 1930 and remained there until 1954 when it moved to Gurney Road (now Jalan Semarak).[2] In 1955, the complex became High Street School.

In addition to normal lessons, the school had classes in commercial subjects such as Shorthand, Typewriting and Bookkeeping. It also had lessons on carpentry, metal works and technical drawings. The first batch of students to sit for the Cambridge School Certificate did so in 1959. They also sat for the full London Chamber of Commerce Intermediate School Certificate examination. This was encouraged by the headmaster Mr Herman de Souza who was the class teacher for the first batch of Form One students and continued teaching them as their class teacher until they reached Form Five in 1959.

In 1962, the school moved to make way for the construction of an overhead bridge. While waiting for the new school buildings to be completed, the students were placed temporarily in St. John's Institution in the afternoon session for two school terms from April 1962 until the end of that year. According to ex-students' accounts, this was where school's rivalry with St. John's began.

In January 1963, High Street School moved to its present location in Setapak, Kuala Lumpur. The new school building was officially opened by the Minister of Education, Mr. Mohamed Khir Johari, on 15 April 1968. The school had also dropped the "Street" from its name to become High School Kuala Lumpur. Since then, it has been affectionately known as 'High School' and is the only school in Kuala Lumpur to use the tag even up until today in the age of Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan.

The present school badge was the second one since 1968. Mr. Kevin de Souza, Head of Arts in 1968, designed the first school badge.

The school motto was changed to "Ilmu Tangga Kemajuan" (Knowledge is Key to Improvement) in the 1980s. In 2002, it was changed again to "Setapak di Hadapan" (One Step Ahead).

The building that the school first resided on at High Street was utilised by the Kuala Lumpur Traffic Police in the 1980s. However, the building was virtually abandoned when a new multi-storey building for the traffic police was built next to it. In the evening of 29 July 1999, the old school building was razed by fire, believed to have been started by drug addicts hiding in the building that was supposedly locked.[3] It has since been rebuilt on the remaining concrete columns, walls and foundation that survived the fire.

TRADITIONS

The first batch of students consisted of about 100 students from the feeder schools viz the Pasar Road Government English School and the Batu Road Government English School. The students who passed the Standard Six Government Examination and who were not selected for the Victoria Institution were enrolled here. The first batch of students had the luxury of small classes (25 per class) and ample space for Science Labs, workshops and resource centres. The school hours were extended to 4 pm to enable the students to learn extra skills, and use the resource centre.

It was the first school to use colours to name the classes instead of Class A, B, C, etc. The best student were in one class identified by a colour and the rest divided equally in the other classes. Thus there was no "feelings" of being in the "D" class. This was also one of the first schools to have a school uniform with a coloured pants and the school badge sewn on to the shirt. Another first was to make all students wear the red school neck tie daily. In the other schools only the Prefects wear the neck tie.

Contrary to belief, gangsterism is not a tradition of the school! But since the beginning, students who went to High School have always been edgy and colourful. The move from the inner city area to the suburbs affected the student makeup as such. The early 1970s saw many students from poor or impoverished families attending classes at High School.

The result was a clear and quick build up to the pack mentality. Students who went to school in the 1970s and 80s almost had to join group (or gang) to be accepted as part of the 'in' crowd. But much to their credit, Prefects of the school maintained a very strong hold on the student population. This ended in the mid-90s when the in coming principals with no understanding of the school culture or mentality allowed 'outsider' students who had just joined the school for their STPM or Sixth Form education to become school captains.

Gangs in the glory days of the 1970s and 80s numbered over a hundred students. The gangs were almost always drawn along racial lines and clashes were limited as a very strict code of honour had developed along with the gangs. So between the prefects and the relative calm of the students, High School was a hard but interesting place to study at. In fact, many students from that era have gone on to become low-profile but highly successful men.

In the middle of all this, there were sports and the long standing Pipes and Drums of Setapak High. The school's most persistent sporting team would have to be the hockey team followed closely by the football team. High School has almost always played a free flowing form of hockey. But most of the great teams of the 1970s and 80s fell to rivals St. John's in the Dato Keramat zone finals. The major difference being discipline and training methods. With very rarely a coach or teacher in their midst, High School hockey was all about individual ability. But still, some trophies came the way of the school.

One very prevalent incident occurred in 1983, when St. John's visited High School for a hockey match. Witness accounts do vary with blame being put on High School students, St. John's supporters and outsiders watching the match. One thing for certain is that a massive brawl broke out at the final whistle and the St. John's bus was set on fire. Such was the fury of High School back in the day. This was only matched in 1995 when after a High School basketball student was stabbed by a St. John player/ supporter, the student body mobilised en masse and several bus loads visited St. John's at high noon.

If the hockey team was the scene of highs and lows of the school, the Pipes and Drums have seen mostly ups. Set up in the 1970s by the Canadian Pioneers which in turn were a spin off from the Scottish Highlanders, the Pipes and Drums were the pride and joy of the school as it epitomised almost military discipline with artistic ability. In almost all activities, the school band led the way. And while there is still the joy of waking up to a Piper's Call even today, the dream of many Drum Majors of the past of 100 pipers has never come close to being realised.

One tradition of the school that has died is the School Bus. This was the hard work of many students during the heady days of Chakaravarthy, without doubt the most famous and best principal the school has had. The money raised by the students eventually got them a bus in the mid-1980s. This vehicle was rightly considered an intimidating chariot. School teams rode it to venues and opposing schools would see the school crest on the side and the words "Sekolah Tinggi Setapak" (Setapak High) and cringe. Sadly, the bus was sold due to reasons that were never disclosed to either students or alumni that had raised the money in the first place.

But the most forthright tradition of the school has to be the 'Never-say die' attitude that is impressed on the students who attend there. While other schools enjoy a higher profile or networked contacts, most Setapakians are highly independent, resourceful and typically loyal to whatever cause they fight for. Hopefully, as the 21st century plods on, this will continue as the school evolves under closer contact with the Ministry of Education and its master plans.

*_High School Old Boys..._*

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Wikipedia - Setapak High School