Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng today took time off his hectic schedule to launch the memoirs of the late La Salle Bro Michael Jacques whom he lauded as an “educator of selfless service unmatched in the annals of Malaysian education.”

The book, ‘The Man from Borneo’, is the autobiography of Bro Michael who died in Petaling Jaya on March 31 at the age of 94.

His career of six decades in the teaching service is one of the longest among the Christian Brothers who set up mission schools in Malaysia from 1852 - St Xavier’s in Penang being the first of its type in the country.  

Kuching-born Bro Michael boarded and studied in St Xavier’s Institution in the 1930s, after primary school at St Joseph’s in the city from which he hailed.

He joined the De Lasalle teaching order at the age of 18 and was Brother Director of St Xavier’s between 1956 and 1961, before going on to higher appointments in the worldwide Lasallian order, a Roman Catholic fraternity dedicated to teaching.

Ex-pupil of La Salle PJ    

In remarks made at the book launch at St Xavier’s Institution, Guan Eng saluted the Christian Brothers for their service to the cause of affordable education of high quality in Malaysia.

A ex-pupil of La Salle Petaling Jaya, Lim said an estimated two million students had passed through the portals of schools established by the Christian Brothers in the century and half of the order’s existence in Malaysia.

“They benefitted from teaching that sought to educate and not to convert,” said Lim.

He said educators like Bro Michael took no notice of a pupil’s race or religion because of their desire to impart an education that was based on supra-racial, supra-partisan standards and values.

Lim recalled that when he was detained under the ISA in Kamunting in 1987, there were “15 Lasallians in the camp at one time.”

He was this partly in allusion to the presence of Bro Anthony Rogers and Bukit Gelugor MP and DAP chairman Karpal Singh, fellow ISA alumni at Kamunting, who were present at the book launch.