Chung Ling High School (Chinese: 槟城锺灵国民型华文中学; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Chong-lêng tiong-o̍h; Malay: Sekolah Menengah Jenis Kebangsaan Chung Ling) is a secondary school in George Town, Penang, Malaysia. It was initially established in 1917 as a primary school, and later became a junior high school in 1923, becoming the oldest extant Chinese high school in Malaysia. Following the merger of The Chinese High School in Singapore in 2005, Chung Ling High School became the oldest surviving Chinese high school in Southeast Asia.
Chung Ling High School was the only Chinese school in Penang to retain its all-male students only tradition. It was a hub of educated Chinese intellects, and was known to harbor radical political thoughts, from both the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party during the Chinese Civil War. In the 1930s, the students of the school, as a response of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and China, held anti-Japanese protests and demonstrations. During the Japanese occupation of Malaya, their past anti-Japanese sentiment resulted in retaliation by the Japanese occupation government, mostly in the form of forceful disbandment of classes, manhunts and a purge of its former staffs and alumni.
The school reopened in 1946 following the end of the Second World War, and achieved its present academic peak during the 1950s and early 1960s, under the tenure of headmaster David Chen (1898–1952), a Chinese education reformer, as the leading Chinese institution of higher education in Southeast Asia. The teachers within the school were noted poets, leading intellects and university professors. Numerous graduates later became educators, Olympic athletes, ministers and important politicians of both Singapore and Malaysia.
Chung Ling High School became a public-school under the British colonial government in 1956. As a result, a breakaway private school, Chung Ling Private High School, was founded in 1962. In 1967, the school was the first Chinese school in the country to introduce pre-university courses (Form 6). Computerization of the administration in the school was launched in 1983, the first in the country. In 1984, the government school was separated once more, forming Chung Ling Butterworth High School, a Butterworth-based co-ed high school for students based in Seberang Perai.
Chung Ling has been categorized as a public school for students of excellent grades. It is designated as a Cluster School of Excellence since 2013, a recognition for the academic performances of the school, and one of four Chinese "controlled-schools" (admission-only under invitation) in Penang.
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