1 week ago
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SINGAPORE – Mr Faiq Faran has not had a smooth education journey.
He moved to Saudi Arabia – where his father was working as an animal nutrition expert – when he was 10 and then returned to Singapore to enter secondary school without having a PSLE certificate.
Even worse, he did badly in his secondary school entrance exams.
“
In
the first exam I took, I knew I would fail as soon as I saw the paper. I don’t think there was a single question I could answer completely,”
said the now 20-year-old.
After being rejected by multiple secondary schools, Naval Base Secondary School eventually offered
him
a place in its Normal (Academic) programme after he barely passed their entrance exams.
It is fair to say that Mr Faiq made an academic turnaround.
Not only was he his cohort’s Top N level student at secondary school, he also won the Board of Governors Award for the Most Outstanding Graduate of the Year after completing his studies at Republic Polytechnic (RP).
Mr Faiq was one of 4,799 graduates across 78 programmes who received their diplomas during
this year’s
RP graduation ceremony, which
is taking place
from May 4 to 8.
“I’m very grateful that my parents made the decision to move back to Singapore for me to continue my education,” said Mr Faiq, who studied pharmaceutical science and was
the 2026
valedictorian for RP’s School of Applied Science.
“My dad felt that it was important I spend my secondary school years in Singapore because of how well-recognised the academic certificates here are,” Mr Faiq said. “I was quite sad to leave (Saudi Arabia), because I was used to the more relaxed pace of life there.”
As a
Sec 1
student,
Mr Faiq found himself struggling to adapt to the syllabus in Singapore.
He said: “My first exam in secondary school, I was getting Ds and Fs for everything. It was a long journey to catch up w...
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