advantage

malaysian students studying in s'pore have one distinct but small advantage over the local students - mastery of the malay language.

what's the big deal, you ask.

no big deal la, except that they make up most of the debaters for polytechnics/junior college teams in the national schools malay language debate. for the local malay schools, the madrasahs, the malay students participate.

my daughter's school, VJC, managed to scrape through the round-robin stage to enter the last 8 for the knock-out competition. the school's debaters are all malaysians.

what's ironic is that in the quarter & semifinals, they consecutively knocked out 2 madrasahs, only to meet, in the final, yet another madrasah, one whom they had earlier lost to in the round-robin stage.

they debate tomorrow. may the better team win. go VJC!!