WHILE most people usually spend their final semester in school mugging in libraries, Madam Zainab Jaffar spent hers lying in bed at home.

She had just underwent a spinal operation during the final semester of her course.

Despite her medical condition, she not only made it through school, she aced it.

Madam Zainab, 46, a Senior Staff Sergeant from Tanglin Police Division, will receive her Diploma with Merit in Police Studies and Security Management today at Temasek Polytechnic's (TP) Part-Time Course Graduation Ceremony.

She is among 195 graduands from five part-time courses at Temasek who will receive their diploma today. (See report below.)

She had to turn her bedroom into a classroom during the final semester after suffering a slipped disc following a bad fall on her way to school in December.

'I couldn't sit for very long after that, so I had to alternate between sitting and standing throughout lessons,' she said.

After her spinal operation in March, just two months shy of her final exams, Madam Zainab could not walk and had to be confined to bed. She was given four months medical leave.

She had to complete her assignments and projects in bed. Occasionally, her course mate would bring her lesson notes and revise them with her.

No matter how painful

She added: 'But when there were tests, exams or presentations, I would insist on going to school no matter how painful it was for me. I told myself to just go and do it.

'My husband would take leave from work (as a police officer) to send me to school. When he couldn't make it sometimes, my colleagues would help me.

'During exams, I'd alternate between sitting and standing. I cannot sit for long because of my back problem.'

Madam Zainab told The New Paper that she could have deferred her studies because of her medical condition.

But she was determined to earn her diploma by this year.

She said: 'Even if I could not walk, I'd crawl to school. I wanted to show my children that no matter what happens or how sick they become, they cannot lay back and just do nothing.'

Madam Zainab has four children aged between 14 and 21.

She had eyed a Diploma with Merit since she was in the first year of her course in 2006.

But when her back problems occurred in her final year and she had to skip classes often, she thought her dream was shattered.

'I totally didn't expect to graduate with a Diploma with Merit. I thought they printed my results slip wrongly. I was so surprised,' she said.

Ervina Mohamed Jamil, newsroom intern

'If the men can do it, why can't I?'

IF she needed to go to the ladies' during her lessons, it would have been almost impossible for Miss Toh Siew Cheng to find a female friend to accompany her.

That's because all her classmates at Temasek Polytechnic's (TP) Security and Fire Safety Management Diploma course were male.

Miss Toh, a 33-year-old Staff Sergeant with Certis CISCO Security, is the first and only woman to graduate from the course in the seven years that it has been offered.

'It's quite a challenge for me,' said Miss Toh, who will receive her diploma today.

'I know that mostly only men will choose to do a course like this, but I still want to do it. If they (the men) can do it, why can't I?' she said.

A TP spokesman said that no female had taken up the course prior to Miss Toh because the security industry is largely male-dominated.

Miss Toh admitted that she felt awkward initially to sit in a class full of men, but she got used to it as the course progressed.

'My classmates like to tease me,' she said with a laugh.

'They call me 'rose' (as in the rose among the thorns). But they're also like my 'big brothers'. They look out for me.'

But back at work, the roles are reversed.

At her workplace, Miss Toh commands about 300 people in her department, and at least 80 per cent of them are men.

Her job scope involves management and deployment of manpower.

Miss Toh said that it was her father and her fiance who encouraged her to enrol in the diploma course.

She revealed that she and her fiance, who is also serving Certis CISCO, were about to get married when she decided to enrol in the course.

'But he was willing to sacrifice and wait three years for me to complete my studies before we settled down.

'He's so supportive of me,' said Miss Toh.

Ervina Mohamed Jamil, newsroom intern

This article was first published in The New Paper.