K S MANIAM : EX-IBRAHIM OF 1960
After completing his schooling at Ibrahim School in 1960, Maniam stayed on for a few months as pupil-teacher, and then left for India, where he was briefly to study medicine. From India, he went to England to study teacher education. In England from 1962 to 1964, he attended the Malayan Teachers College in
Wolverhampton, residing at Brinsford Lodge where his fellow-lodgers were ethnically-mixed, an experience he found positive. As Maniam remembers it, Brinsford Lodge was a potentially Malaysian society in the true sense of the word, a place where, for a magic moment, culture, ethnicity, birthplace,and language made little difference.
But Brinsford was a long way from Kedah. On successfully completing his Certificate of Education, Maniam returned to Malaysia and taught in various rural schools in Kedah until 1970, when he enrolled in an undergraduate Arts/English degree course at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur.
After completing a BA (Hons), he went on to obtain a Master's degree in English Literature, by completing a thesis on "A Critical History of Malaysian and Singaporean Poetry in English." His academic career commenced in 1979, when he was appointed to a lectureship in English at the University of Malaya. He retired from an Associate Professorship in the Department of English at that University in 1997. Through English-medium education, Maniam escaped the desperate confines of his small town/plantation childhood, and even now he publicly affirms that the
English language has given him a centre to life.
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Wolverhampton, residing at Brinsford Lodge where his fellow-lodgers were ethnically-mixed, an experience he found positive. As Maniam remembers it, Brinsford Lodge was a potentially Malaysian society in the true sense of the word, a place where, for a magic moment, culture, ethnicity, birthplace,and language made little difference.
But Brinsford was a long way from Kedah. On successfully completing his Certificate of Education, Maniam returned to Malaysia and taught in various rural schools in Kedah until 1970, when he enrolled in an undergraduate Arts/English degree course at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur.
After completing a BA (Hons), he went on to obtain a Master's degree in English Literature, by completing a thesis on "A Critical History of Malaysian and Singaporean Poetry in English." His academic career commenced in 1979, when he was appointed to a lectureship in English at the University of Malaya. He retired from an Associate Professorship in the Department of English at that University in 1997. Through English-medium education, Maniam escaped the desperate confines of his small town/plantation childhood, and even now he publicly affirms that the
English language has given him a centre to life.
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