UPSR: 9 hours travelling to school, not an obstacle to achieve 5A's

Emily Joinin affectionally known as Emily was the first student to achieve such result since the establishment of the school in 1998.

For her parents, words cannot describe their feelings when Emily’s excellent result was announced.

"We are very pleased to hear about Emily’s UPSR results. My wife was jumping for joy when she found out about this," said Emily’s father Joinin Jabil, 40, who is also an English teacher in SK Magandai 6 years.

As for Emily's mother, Helly Noorwhety Jodiv, 35 she said: "Since she was a kid, she is really good at academic. We have faith that she can score the examination. She is very confident about it. I will be sad if she did not achieve her target, because she was so confident about it.”

For Emily’s parents who are also teachers they are willing to sacrifice their time and energy to travel to SK Magandai which are away from their home in order to educate their students.

"Usually we will ride our motorcycles together with other villagers who else to go to school, which is located about 100km from our house, Kampung Tondig Tandik, Kota Marudu.

“If the weather is unfavorable or raining, we would have to walk. The journey would take about 9 hours and sometimes it could take a day because we have to stay overnight in the forest during our walk to school,” Joinin added.

Emily who stays at Kampung Tondig Tandik, Kota Marudu, Sabah, approximately 100km from her school travels nine hours or sometimes even for a day in pursuit of knowledge.

"Together with my friends, we will always do our revisions and study group when we were free," said Emily during an interview with Astro AWANI at KLFA Football Centre yesterday.

Joinin said the journey to school usually starts on Sunday.

Most of the teachers and students would have to stay at the school for two to three weeks because of the exceptionally long distance.

Emily also excels in sports.

She is currently in Kuala Lumpur mentoring students under the 1MCC-Astro Kem BOLA 2014 Football Training programme.

Emily first participated in the programme in 2013 and was selected to undergo intensive training at Cardiff City Football Club, Cardiff, United Kingdom, held in March, 2014.