HISTORY OF KHENG CHENG SCHOOL SINCE 1927

The school’s history can be traced back to 1910 when Madam Lim Peng Tuan arrived and set up home in Shrewsbury Road, a rural area near Newton and Moulmein. In 1922, Madam Lim was approached by a scholar, Mr Tan Cheo Teng to set up a school. She agreed as she saw this to be an excellent opportunity to provide education for the neighbourhood children.

Although there were many difficulties in the early years, the enrolment in the school grew steadily. In 1927, Madam Lim registered the school as Kheng Cheng School and took over the management of the school.

Over the next few years, the school moved to 219 Moulmein Road in 1931 and then to 6-6A Derbyshire Road in 1937. Throughout the difficult periods, Madam Lim never gave up. She waived the school fees for the needy children and even supplied free books. At her suggestion, afternoon classes were held for students who went to english schools in the mornings. This was the start of bilingual education in Kheng Cheng School.

In 1960s when the government built the first satellite town in Toa Payoh, the school Management Committee managed to raise funds to build a new building. Thus in August 1972, the new school building in Toa Payoh was officially opened by then Member of Parliament, Mr Eric Cheong. When the thirty year lease was up in Toa Payoh, MOE agreed to the construction of a new building built on the same site. The current school building at Lorong 3 Toa Payoh was officially opened on 19 November 2005 by the Minister for Education, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

We give credit to the founder, Mdm Lim for being far-sighted. Though she only had a few years of education and was not wealthy, she firmly believed that the only road out of poverty was the avenue of education. She strongly believed that education could empower the people. Madam Lim gave her school the Teochew name, “Kheng Cheng” which means to “uplift the youths”. This name continues to inspire us till today.