Exemplary educators – Kuen Cheng High School

PASSION, determination and love for education are the “ingredients” that have kept Gooi Swee Gaik in the field for nearly her whole life.

Gooi who turns 73 this year, shows no signs of slowing down despite serving as an educator for the past 42 years.

She started teaching Mathematics and Chinese language in Catholic High School (CHS), Petaling Jaya in 1975 and stayed on for the next 15 years.

“It was as if fate was working its magic.

“I was supposed to take up a position as a lecturer in Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, but timing wasn’t right and I was offered a position in CHS around that time instead,” she said.

Gooi graduated with a degree in linguistics from the National Taiwan University in Taiwan, and later on successfully earned her Master’s degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Illinois, in the United States.

In 1990, she was appointed as the principal of Kuen Cheng High School, an all girls’ school then, and has since contributed to its re-development and expansion projects.