By Les Tan
When I found out recently that the Ministry of Education was cramming most school sports into the first five months of the year, I was sorely disappointed.
In the last two years, I’ve always found I had to choose which sport to attend. The A Division fixtures for example, line up all the finals within a 10-day period. Some days, up to three finals are played simultaneously.
According to the MOE, almost all zonal and national championships will be over by May.
"All inter-school sporting competitions, including zonal and national competitions for the A, B and C Divisions, under the purview of SSSC, will be held from January to May in 2009 instead of the usual period of January to July," an MOE spokesperson said to the New Paper.
The ostensible reason given by MOE is that they are accommodating the Asian Youth Games slated for July and the ASEAN School Games to be held after that.
The same MOE spokesperson told the New Paper: "To facilitate our student athletes' participation in the AYG, the Singapore Schools Sports Council (SSSC) has made adjustments to the school sporting calendar in 2009.”
Why change whole schedules just for elite athletes participating in the AYG and the ASEAN School Games? What about the rest of the student athletes? The elite athletes account for a very small percentage.
The school sports administrators are probably getting roped in to help out with the AYG logistics on the ground but still, it is lamentable that most school sports are crammed into the first five months of the year.
We don’t eat for 5 months of the year then stop, do we? We don’t study for 5 months of the year then stop, do we?
Why not the same for sports? No wonder our boys fail the IPPT and struggle in the army. We are just giving out the message, “Let’s get the sports out of the way and then let’s concentrate on the exams.”
If anything else, sports keep a student alert for studies.
As the saying goes, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
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Schools Track and Field and Swimming C'ships to be held in May instead of July in 2009
I think this is very unfair on us(student athletes in B Div Rugby), as now we have only 2-3 weeks to train for our Nationals and that is certainly not enough time to get us back in shape and do our set plays etc. There are around 20 schools in the tournament and they each have around 20 players. Thats equal to 400 players, I am not sure but i think this is how many athletes who will come for around 2 sports in AYG. And just think about the other sports, soccer, tennis, cricket, basketball.
This is very unfair on all the schools and their students.
Thanks for sharing your perspective, Nat and yy.
I’m a student athlete and no, we don’t stop training from May onwards and almost every school that I know of, don’t stop training either. After May students have to prepare for end of year exams and for the sec4’s their O’levels. Prelims for O levels start in August and since tournaments end in May, it will still provide ample time to revise and study. Can you imagine how it would be if tournaments will still be held after May? And for everyone else except the Sec4’s, training is still on as per normal.
And yes this way the elite student athletes don’t have to miss out on their school competitions for AYG.
I think it is better for sec 4s o levels students cos o level is pushed forward. Students like me will have much more time to prepare for olevels esp since we dont have other free time to study. After the season, we will have enough time to revise 😀 Also, it wont clash with ayg & asean schools & yog preparation. Or else elite athletes will have to miss the nationals schools comp for ayg.
hi les.
yes, all my guys do their NAPFA before june. if i didnt remember wrongly, it should be around march or april period. my college starts training them very early so that they will do well. i know that most colleges have their NAPFA before june too. cos after that, CCAs will usually stand down for them to concentrate on their studies. PE lessons for my college are also replaced with other subjects tutorials/lectures after NAPFA.
From June to December, without training? No wonder by the time they get to the Army their fitness is gone.
ah yes. I was. And I still do sometimes now. =)
Competitions periods are a terrible time back during schooling days. Worst thing was when u have a few of us in a team that plays other sports. Team managers had to beg to change fixtures just for us.. haaahaa..
Hi dee,
Do the college guys do their physical fitness test in the first six months?
my college pushed everyone quite hard to pass their NAPFA test so that the guys will not suffer in NS. when they step down from their CCA, they don’t usually exercise anymore cos all of them will usually be concentrating on their studies. i can understand why the SAP pplev are complaining. even for me, when i finished my A levels, i found it hard to even run a proper 2.4km under 13mins!
this is what too much studyin and no exercise leads to! 🙁 i had a hard time getting my stamina back!
i’m a student athlete myself. and we’re training like really hard now cus everything is coming at the same time.
sucks 🙁 there’s not much time left for studies. in my perspective that is haha.
Hi a-Fa, thanks for your story.
Are you playing more than one sport?
i’m sorry but this comment might be long =P.happy reading~
The person who did the fixtures confirm is not someone who plays sports. There are so many athletes that are playing more than one sport out there. And usually in school they have to skip one match to be available at another match that occurs at the same time. (training is different though. u can skip one and goes for another and coaches won’t mind. but competition wise it’s different.) In the end, the talented kid is in the losing end and both coaches would be at a lost too.If they are the star player for all the teams, the coach could also blame them for their absence if the team lose. Injuries could also rise rapidly. This is how Singapore lose their talent.
As for them, Singaporeans should only excel in 1 thing and not be a polymath which could excel in everything. u can’t blame me though as i was breed in the generation where if u’re taking triple pure Science, the school won’t allow u to take up arts,literature, accounts, design, etc since u ARE a Science student. and science students are not suppose to do all those art-sy stuffs and sports. Just to show them how wrong they could be, this science student even went to the extent to rebel them and excelled in CCA’s that consist of multiple sports, art, design, leadership, etc much to their dismay. Even now, people(especially HR) don’t understand how we kids could handle multiple discipline. Come on, even now engineer trained graduates goes on to become businessman, designers, chefs, etc when given the opportunity. So can’t A talented and sporting singaporean kid excelled in lets say, soccer, badminton and bowling?
Most teacher in charge and all the other management surely have no problems with it as they could rest after the hectic competition. But come on, put yourself into our shoes – the multi sported athletes i mean. Training like crazy and then having to decide which sport matches to go to if they clashes.
spare a thought for us~
and thanks uncle Les for bringing this topic to all the readers! cheers~
Hi dee, thanks for sharing your perspective.
Someone mentioned to me the other day that the SAF was complaining about recruits who were had terrible fitness even though records showed that they passed their IPPT in JC.
But that’s because they passed their IPPT in the first half of the year!
By the time they got to army six months or so later, their fitness had deteriorated.
i used to be a college representative for track and field, doing 100m,200m and 4x100m plus netball. with all the sports being cramped up in the first 5 months, i wonder how are athletes going to cope with training. i had 5 trainings a week, once everyday when i was in those sports. it wasn’t very effective for me as my body muscles didn’t have enough time to recover and was often late for school as i always oversleep.
it is getting more stressful for students here in singapore. they need to excel in both studies and sport yet their time table is not well spaced out or planned. it is very tiring to have to juggle so many things. for year 2 jc students, some colleges have 2 prelims- once in march and once in may/june. how are these student athletes going to juggle with some many things on their plates and so little time?
Hi HM,
You are quite right. It would not make any sense to have finals near exams. Nobody will be able to concentrate on either sport or studies.
I feel that even if we have the season spread over the year, for example having 1st round at the start of the year and finals at the end of the year, I think that students’ academic may suffer more. If finals were to be held at the end of the year, students need to be constantly focusing on their trainings for finals and end-of-year exam. And for most schools, end-of-year contribute the highest percentage to the overall grade. I feel that by having the season spread throughout the year, it would only strain the students mentally.
On the other hand, although the sports season is cramp in the first few months of the year, this doesn’t mean students aren’t training for the following year’s season. After the break from the season, coaches would be pushing their students again for next year tournaments. In fact, some schools they ensure that their students are levelled up to the competive-ness by joining tournaments that are held after the tournament. Of course, schools probably wouldn’t send their students for tournaments if end-of-year exams are near. And I feel that this benefits the students more compared to spreading out the sports season throughout the year.
Thanks for jumping in too, PK.
I suppose if you are an athlete, the season for your sport will remain the same length and whether your championship season starts or ends earlier matters little, unless you are one of those play-three-sports type of athlete and if there is an overlap, you are done for.
I have to agree with you les – As a coach who has been involved with School sports for the last 6 years, 3 of which as a TIC, cramming all the school sports into such a short period of time will definately be detrimental to the people that matter the most – the athletes.
At the end of the day, the Singaporean Education credo has been studies first, sports 2nd. While this is changing, there are still many parents and teachers alike who share this view. With such a cramped schedule leading to exams, and increased training in season as outlined by critter#33, most athletes will see their academics suffer. There will be an increased burden to balance both, and lets be honest, in season to most means studies will suffer. This affects their mid year exam results and the warth of both parents and teachers for doing badly, despite the fact they have been hard at work persuing their sport.
What I will see happen is the emergence of many ‘stand in’ competitions to fill the void after the national championships. Schools, clubs and NSAs will need to step in and organize tournaments to ensure that all sports get adequate competition. Lets face it – you can condition your athletes for 6 months, but if all you do during that period is a few friendly games/races, then how competitive will you be when the national champs roll around? The downside is that many of these competitions will require entrance fees to maintain, but with slashed budgets – will this be possible?
Thanks for your input. I take it then it doesn’t matter that most of the sports are crammed into five months?
From a media point of view, a longer season is always more interesting, rather than having things crammed together.
Well, as a ex-teacher in charge, i know for sure that sports programs that are established in their zones and in the nationals will never stop just because the season is over. As a matter of fact, it is precisely the continuous conditioning that these programs give their student atheletes that get them above the rest of the competition.
I know for one that the 6 years as a teacher-ic for my team I never had more than 10 days complete break from my team. With the exception of the exam season, where we took a 3week break and resumed training the day exams ended.