Colourful school assembly

Notice anything wrong with this picture? Maybe there's something with it, and maybe there's none. 

But it was taken just a few days ago at the Monday morning assembly session of the Penang Free School, when a few Old Frees turned up at their Alma Mater for a second soft launch of the memoirs of JMB Hughes who was the school's last European headmaster from 1957 to 1963.

Call me old fashioned if you must, but what disturbed me was seeing the boys dressed up in all manners of T-shirts.

Though it certainly added some colour to the occasion, I thought that it was dreadful that the Monday school assembly had become so trivialised. A school assembly session is a formal affair and is a long cherished tradition for the Penang Free School. But as it was, the boys were made to look so sloppy, and that's already putting it very mildly.

The pupils should be dressed properly in school attire and everyone should be proud to wear their school tie, NOT dressed in coloured T-shirts and other sports wear. Okay, I was given to understand that this was Sports Week and immediately after the school assembly, the pupils were going straight for their games. But that was beside the point. It's no excuse, really, because they could have changed quickly from their school uniforms into their sports attire after assembly.

So this is one matter that the school headmaster should address immediately. As an Old Free himself, he should ensure that school traditions must be maintained and that this absurdity should be ended henceforth.