Parliamentary Replies
Sustained Achievement Award
Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament
Mr Lee Bee Wah, Member of Parliament for Ang Mo Kio GRC
Question
To ask the Minister for Education (a) whether the Ministry is satisfied with the desired outcomes since the implementation of the Sustained Achievement Award (SAA) for schools; (b) how many schools have reduced its list of sports offerings under Co-Curricula Activity (CCA) for students in the last 2 years and what are the reasons; (c) how does the Ministry prevent schools from over-focusing on competitive sports in order to win the SAA at the expense of other sports; and (d) how does the Ministry ensure that schools offer at least a minimum number of sports for CCAs to benefit non-competitive students.
Response
Introduced in 1998, the Sustained Achievement Award (SAA) to recognise schools for their sustained excellence in the Aesthetics, Sports and Uniformed Groups, have led to the pursuit of sporting excellence and the good student participation. About one-third of our secondary and pre-university students participate in a sport CCA.
Schools provide a range of CCA options to students to cater to the varied interests and needs of students. Although there may be local changes at school level, the average number of CCA sports in schools has remained constant over the last few years. On the average, secondary schools provide 12 sports CCAs.
Besides CCA, schools also conduct ‘Learn to Play’ sports courses under the Sports Education Programme (SEP) for all other students and organise sports carnivals as part of their recreation and enrichment programme for students. The zone sports development committees also organise inter-school games competitions for students who are not in school teams.