DPM Lawrence Wong at the Singapore Sports School's 20th Anniversary and Awards Night

My Cabinet and Parliamentary colleagues
Chairman, and Principal of Singapore Sports School
Staff, Students, and Alumni
Ladies and Gentlemen

I was here 10 years ago, some of you may remember, for your 10th anniversary in 2014. Very good to be back again, this time for your 20th anniversary. To celebrate yet another key milestone for SSP, as well as the achievements of your student-athletes.

Singapore Sports School’s Achievements

At the 10th anniversary, we undertook a strategic review – to see how the SSP could do more to better support our young athletes. Arising from the review, SSP expanded its role to play a bigger role in the sports ecosystem. Effectively, we wanted the school not just to be a sports school, but to be a national sporting institute, supporting our young athletes. And that is why we set up the National Youth Sports Institute – not just to develop your own student-athletes, but also support youth athletes across the entire nation, providing them with a range of support, including in sports science and medicine. Of course, SSP also introduced other programmes, including your through-train post-secondary programmes, so student-athletes do not have to worry about examinations at the end of their secondary school and can continue with their pace of training and competitions.

These were just some of the changes that were introduced 10 years ago. And these changes have borne fruit. Over the last decade, the school has produced many more Olympians and world champions. Your student-athletes and alumni have brought in more than their share of medals at major games. Your alumni, like Shanti Pereira and Loh Kean Yew, just to name a few, have made us proud and inspired us with their sporting achievements.

SSP continues to have a strong pipeline of sporting talents. Tonight, we celebrate the outstanding achievements of 38 student-athletes. One of them is table tennis player Izaac Quek Yong. He clinched 3 titles at his debut SEA Games last year and is also the youngest local paddler to win the SEA Games Men’s Singles title. Another example is pencak silat exponent Amirah Sahrin. She won Gold at the 2022 World Championship, and the 2023 SEA Games, and is now preparing for the 2024 World Championships, and we wish her all the very best. These are just two of the many award recipients tonight. All the award winners have excelled in their respective sports, and they have flown the Singapore flag high proudly and made all of us very proud of your achievements. So, congratulations to all of you, they deserve a big round of applause.

The SSP has not only helped student-athletes achieve sporting excellence, but also equipped them with the skills to do well in life. Nearly all your graduates progress to tertiary education. And as we heard just now from the principal, you work with our local universities to provide national athletes greater flexibility in course selection and duration of study, arrangements or assessments, mentorship, and wellness support. All these to better accommodate their training and competition schedules.

We are very proud of the achievements of SSP, as well as your students and alumni. The video that you screened just now has just reminded all of us how far you have come these last 20 years. All of these achievements were made possible only with the dedication of our student-athletes; support from their parents, many of whom are here, and importantly, the support from the school’s partners. I also of course want to acknowledge the dedication and hard work of the school’s leadership, teachers, coaches and staff, both past and present, especially our pioneering principal, Mr Moo, as well as his dream team, which was highlighted just now. Thank you all for your contributions and congratulations on this important milestone!

Investing in Sports

Today, Team Singapore is performing at a much higher level than before, be it at world rankings or our athletes’ personal best records.

The Government has also stepped up our investments in sports. These include funding to support our National Sports Associations in identifying and developing sports talent; as well as initiatives to support our athletes during their sporting careers, and their transition to life after competitive sports. Such support has made pursuing sporting excellence a much more viable pathway for young people compared to the past.

As a Minister who used to oversee sports, I have long been an advocate for more investment in sports. I am no longer in MCCY, but I assure you I will give my full support for sports in Singapore. This is just not rhetoric and just talking, because I have already done so, even in this year’s Budget. In this year’s Budget, we have set aside more funding for the One Team Singapore Fund. That provides dollar-for-dollar matchings for donations to Team Singapore athletes and for sports cares. So please donate generously to sports, please spread the word, get people to donate generously to sports, because it is dollar-for-dollar matching. Every dollar that is raised, the Government matches, and we hope this will encourage everyone in Singapore to do more to support the sports. Besides the top up to this fund, we have also provided additional resources to anchor more major sports events here in Singapore, and this way our athletes can compete in top-tier competitions against the world’s best, right here on home ground. This will allow more Singaporeans to cheer for Team Singapore in action. These were two initiatives we announced in this year’s Budget, and I assure you that the Government will continue to do more for sports and invest more in sports.

What can we do? First, by improving our sports infrastructure. In fact through ActiveSG, something which we started 10 years ago as well, we now have better sporting facilities across all our communities in Singapore. We also have a masterplan for Sports Hub, which the government has taken over, as well as the wider Kallang precinct. We have recently opened the Kallang Football Hub and Kallang Tennis Hub. And we are working on a new indoor arena, which can also support a wider range of sporting events and activities.

Second, we will invest not just in infrastructure, but also in more inclusive programmes, so that everyone can participate in sports in Singapore. We are doing so through the ActiveSG networks and across all our schools, so that the happiness for sports and the passion of sports can be nurtured from a very young age. We are introducing a wider range of programmes, so that our people with disabilities can take part in sports. And we are also rolling out more programmes for seniors, so that all of us, regardless of age, can continue to participate in sports, and stay active and healthy through life.

Third and importantly, we will continue to pay close attention to high-performance sports, and especially support for our national athletes. We will help our athletes balance their studies, work and sports, and transit to a life after competitive sports. We will also provide better support for our national athletes. At MCCY, when I was there 10 years ago, I introduced spexScholarships, which I am sure our athletes and students are familiar with. This is for high-performing national athletes. When they train full-time, we provide them with support, including monthly stipends, training allowances, and funding for their competitions. Under Minister Edwin’s leadership, MCCY has expanded the spexScholarship programme. He has done so by covering more types of sports, including those that are not represented in the major games. In fact, MCCY recently awarded a scholarship to our first athlete from indoor skydiving. They have also done so by supporting young athletes who may not have achieved results at senior-level competitions but show a lot of potential and good promise. MCCY has done this through the spexPotential programme. In other words, you’re not ready yet for the spexScholarship, but you are identified as someone with the potential, and so you are able to get some funding. The inaugural batch of young athletes received their spexPotential awards earlier this month.

Tonight, I am happy to share that we will be expanding the spex programme. Because up till now, the spex programme has been supporting athletes by providing funding for living expenses, full-time training, and competition costs. But we think we can do further. So, we will expand the support with a new scholarship for undergraduate studies for our young athletes – be it from sport schools or from other schools. The new undergraduate scholarship will provide support for school expenses at the undergraduate level, including tuition fees and course materials. So, athletes can apply and make use of this scholarship to pursue undergraduate studies while they are training, or they may choose to be sponsored for undergraduate studies after they have pursued their sporting excellence goals. MCCY will share more details about this new scholarship later this year. I have shared some of our upcoming plans for sports in Singapore, but there is much more that we can do together. We are fully committed to do it more because we believe in the power of sports. We believe that sports can enrich our lives, and bring us closer together as a community and as a nation.

Conclusion

Singapore may be a small country, but we can still aim high and excel in sports. Our Olympic Gold medallist, Joseph Schooling, showed us the way. He has showed us what it means to have the hunger to excel and go beyond what others think we are capable of. To the student-athletes here – I would say, go forth and chase the rainbow, make your dreams come true, and inspire your fellow Singaporeans with your grit, passion, and determination. We are behind you all the way!

Even as we celebrate tonight’s milestones, I am excited at what lies ahead. For all of us in the sports scene in Singapore, and also for the sports school, as you chart the next round of your development.

My best wishes to each and every one of you, and to all our athletes in Team Singapore, on your sporting endeavours and congratulations once again to the Singapore Sports School, on your 20th anniversary. Thank you very much.

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