Sekolah Menengah Yu Yuan

About Yu Yuan Secondary School

Yu Yuan Secondary School (育源中学) is a Chinese Independent High School in Sandakan, Sabah. It was founded in 1962 by the late Member of Parliament Wei Ya-gui on a site of about 10.38 acres along Jalan Labuk. The school began as a private institution serving students who had not passed government examinations, then converted to the Chinese independent secondary stream in 1977 to 1978 to teach in Mandarin and prepare students for the Unified Examination Certificate.

Enrolment grew from 122 students at the 1977 restart to over 900 by 1997, and passed 1,000 students with around 65 staff by 2015. The school was the first in the Sandakan region to set up a computer laboratory in 1984, and it formed the region’s first secondary-school military brass band in 1981.

This page covers the private independent school. It should not be confused with any government-aided national-type secondary school of a similar name.

Curriculum at Yu Yuan Secondary School

Yu Yuan Secondary School follows the Chinese independent curriculum structured in two stages: Junior Middle 1 to 3 and Senior Middle 1 to 3. The medium of instruction is Mandarin, with Bahasa Melayu taught as a compulsory subject and English alongside it. At the end of each stage students sit the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC), the standardised examination coordinated by the United Chinese School Committees Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong, also written UCSCAM).

The school runs a parallel national track. By 1983 Junior Middle students were taking the lower-secondary national examination together with the junior UEC, and Senior Middle students were taking SPM alongside the senior UEC, so most graduates leave with both certificates. Computer studies became a formal subject in 1992, and a commercial stream using the LCCI syllabus was added in the same year.

Holding both UEC and SPM keeps two routes open: the UEC is accepted by many private and overseas universities, while SPM keeps the national public-university pathway available. The wider Chinese Independent High Schools directory explains how the dual-certificate model works across the country.

Fees at Yu Yuan Secondary School

Yu Yuan Secondary School does not publish a fixed fee table online. As a Chinese Independent High School, it is funded through tuition fees and community donations rather than full government grants, which keeps fees well below the international-school range. Schools in this sector generally charge in the region of RM 3,000 to RM 12,000 per year, with the exact figure depending on the year level and on registration and resource charges.

Families should contact the school directly for the current schedule, including any one-time registration or deposit costs. Sabah’s recognition of the UEC for state civil-service entry, introduced in 2019, adds value to the qualification for local families weighing the cost.

Admissions at Yu Yuan Secondary School

Entry to Yu Yuan Secondary School is at Junior Middle 1, usually after Year 6 of primary school, with places also taken at later levels where space allows. Applicants from Chinese primary schools move into the Mandarin-medium programme directly, while students from other backgrounds should discuss the language requirement with the school before applying.

Prospective families should contact the school for the intake calendar and document list, which typically includes the student’s birth certificate, primary-school results, and identification. Contact admissions at 089-215762 or through the school website at yuyuan.ws.

Yu Yuan Secondary School in Sabah

Yu Yuan Secondary School sits at Mile 4 on Jalan Labuk in Sandakan, on the east coast of Sabah. Sandakan is the second-largest town in the state, and the school draws students from the town and the surrounding Labuk district. Its long presence, dating from 1962, makes it one of the established Chinese-medium schools on Sabah’s east coast.

Sabah’s 2019 decision to recognise the UEC for entry into the state civil service mattered for UEC schools across the state, including Yu Yuan, because it gave the certificate a clear local pathway in addition to its acceptance by private and overseas universities. Contact: 089-215762, yuyuan.ws.