iremembermySchoolDays competition receives 380 memories

SINGAPORE: The iremembermySchoolDays competition, in which students and teachers shared memories of their school days, received more than 380 entries from 44 schools.

Three schools have emerged winners in the competition by the Singapore Memory Project and the Ministry of Education.

The winning team from the secondary school and junior college category was intrigued by school fashion trends.

The Victoria Junior College (VJC) students explored how school bags evolved over the years, in line with changing homework load — from sling bags, to sturdier trolley bags and backpacks.

A VJC student said: "The school bags are heavier nowadays. Appearance wise, they are also more trendy and there are also different styles and bags compared to the previous generation."

Two schools tied for first place in the primary school category — the Yishun Primary School team captured memories of the games students play during recess time over the years while the Raffles Girls’ Primary School (RGPS) team chose to focus on their different campuses, as their school re—located three times over the years.

A RGPS student said: "I learnt that our school’s history is actually very tied in with Singapore’s history because during the Japanese occupation, the Queen Street campus of our school was actually used as the Kempeitai’s headquarters."

Another RGPS student said: "We managed to find out about the Raffles Bridge of love at Holland Groove, where many students went to take photographs. We also managed to find out from the alumni in the school many other interesting places in the school where they used to go and some interesting games that they played."

Director of the Singapore Memory Project, Gene Tan, hopes this project will foster better understanding between students from different generations.

"The students managed to interview not just their peers but also the past students. Understanding the school days of the past, understanding the games that they played, even the heartbreaks that they had many years ago, was a fantastic inter—generational project," Tan said.

The competition is part of the Singapore Memory Project, which captures and documents memories on Singapore from individuals and organisations.

To date, the project has collected some 300,000 contributions since its launch in August last year.

Driven by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, and led by the National Library Board, the project aims to collect five million memories by 2015.

— CNA/ck