PM Lee announces ‘strategic review’ of Singapore Sports School

The Singapore Sports School has “come a long way” in 10 years of existence, but with the Republic’s neighbouring rivals breathing down her neck, the time has come to shake things up.
 
So said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as he announced the next big step for the school during a speech made at the institution’s 10th anniversary celebrations, held at its Woodlands premises on Wednesday evening.
 
“The school has done well, but you need to continually review your work to stay relevant to the changing sporting landscape,” said Lee.
 
“Competition is getting stronger. In Southeast Asia, other countries are investing significant resources to develop their athletes,” he added. “They’re closing the gap on us, even in sports where we traditionally do well.”
 
The Sports School must respond by taking “a fresh look… at how we can do better and what we can do next”, said Lee, who then challenged the school to become a “national sports academy of excellence” within the next decade.
 
To achieve this, the Sports School will conduct a strategic review, undertaken by a committee co-chaired by Yeoh Chee Yan, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY), as well as Singapore Sports Council chairman Richard Seow.
 
The committee has a year-end deadline to submit proposals on how to nurture and develop students to become top athletes, while assuring their progress to the next level of education, said a statement by the Sports School.
 
Studies first
 
In his address, Lee also touched on the key initiatives of the review, one of which was to “study how the best sports academies in the world design their academic curricula to meet the demands of an intensive sports training regime”.
 
He then spoke of increased partnerships with polytechnics and universities, both in Singapore and abroad, to offer through-train academic pathways for Sports School students, citing the existing Sports and Leisure Management (SLM) Diploma with Republic Polytechnic as an example.
 
One standout athlete in the three-year-old SLM course is table tennis player Isabelle Li, who recently struck singles silver and team gold at the Southeast Asia Games in December.

 
“I didn’t have to go to junior colleges or mainstream schools (where I would) have to struggle,” Li, 19, explained. “My training schedule is 7am to 10pm with studies in between. It’s not easy and I’m thankful the SLM pathway has given me the kind of support I need.”

With so much on her plate, she was still singled out in PM Lee’s speech for having a GPA of 3.98 out of four -- and as an instance of the Sports School's high standards in academia, which saw 89.7% of its 2013 'O' levels batch qualify for JC and 97.4% for polytechnic.

The school has also seen more than half of its graduates from the 2006 to 2009 cohorts enrolled in universities, and even produced one President’s Scholar last year.

Li later told reporters that she could imagine the difficulty behind juggling sports and studies at university level.
 
“In Singapore, when local athletes reach 18, they make the decision to go to university,” she said. “Then it gets hard to excel at an elite level and compete against top athletes who just train, train and train every day.”
 
Champ central
 
But the results have been varied for Sports School alumni and current Nanyang Technological University undergraduates Calvin Kang, Amanda Lim and Dipna Lim-Prasad.

 
Lim is Singapore’s fastest woman in the pool and has picked up 10 gold medals in swimming over just three SEA Games editions.
 
Sprint prospect Kang ran at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and has won two consecutive relay silvers at the Games.
 
And fellow Olympian and athletics star Lim-Prasad recently clinched bronze at the bi-annual regional meet, setting a new national record and earning Singapore its first-ever Games medal in the 400m hurdles.
 
While these examples prove that Singapore athletes can still compete and achieve success while in university, a good many Sports School students are not looking so far ahead just yet – one of whom is Iman Fandi, daughter of local football hero Fandi Ahmad and ex-model Wendy Jacobs.

The 13-year-old sprinter told Yahoo Singapore she was unsure of her future right now, beyond coping with what she called “pretty tough” academics and “tiring” track practice.
 
The likes of Li, however, are already looking beyond their sporting careers -- and with much confidence, thanks to their education at the Sports School.
 
“What makes me proud to be Singaporean… is because in other countries, some athletes make it, some don’t, and these experience difficulties later in their lives,” she said. “For me and other local athletes, we know there will be (always be) something in store for us (sic).”