PM Lawrence Wong at the Opening of the Outward Bound Singapore (OBS) Coney Island Campus

Mr David Chua, CE (Chief Executive) of NYC,
My Cabinet colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Students,

Good morning! It is a delight to join all of you here for the opening of the new OBS campus. Thank you for the warm welcome. The students I met just now I think come from different schools. We have Catholic High; There is – let me make sure I get all of them – Jurongville, Peicai Secondary and Woodlands Secondary. Did I miss out anyone? Ok, all four schools, and I understand from the students it is the last day of your challenge. So, congratulations and well done!

The OBS Experience

As you heard from David, we had conceived this new OBS (Outward Bound Singapore) in Coney, way back when I was still at MCCY. That was many years ago. And it is very good to be here now, finally, to see the campus all completed. We set up OBS much earlier, way back in 1967.

Then, we were a newly independent country facing an uncertain future. And we said we wanted Singaporeans with courage, with determination, with the resolve to overcome all sorts of adversity and that is why OBS was established to develop rugged and resilient young Singaporeans.

Now, almost six decades on, Singapore has changed dramatically. But the need to build character has not diminished.  If anything, it has become even more important.

Today we are more secure and successful. But the world around us is more complex, more volatile, more unpredictable, more dangerous.

Surveys done by the NYC (National Youth Council) show that young people in Singapore remain confident and optimistic about our future. But at the same time, many are anxious about the challenges ahead.

We know we cannot shield young people from every setback or difficulty.

But we must continue to equip them with the capabilities and ability to face adversity with confidence and grit – and that is exactly what OBS is designed to do.

People tend to associate OBS with expeditions and obstacle courses. Of course there is plenty of that.

But that is not what OBS is fundamentally about.

OBS is about discovering what you are capable of when you are stretched beyond your comfort zone.

And it is about discovering what a group can achieve when everyone works together.

And that is why we have the MOE-OBS Challenge, introduced in 2017. It is a five-day, four-night outdoor camp for Sec 3 students. They kayak, trek and take on land and water challenges. They do all this together in teams, and along the way, they learn that perseverance builds resilience; that setbacks can be overcome.

The students come from different schools and backgrounds, but here at OBS, they live together, face challenges together, and overcome them as a team. They arrive as strangers but they leave as friends. And in the process, they learn something important: that we are stronger when we look beyond our differences and look out for one another. And I am sure all the Sec 3 students who have just completed or almost completed your OBS challenge can attest to the positive experience.

Last year, around 18,000 Sec 3 students experienced the MOE-OBS Challenge.  That is around or nearly half of our annual cohort. They have all given very positive feedback, so we want to make this challenge available to every student. And with this new campus, with the ramping up of more OBS instructors, we will be able to open up the OBS challenge to all Secondary 3 students.

And we will not stop at secondary school. We will expand opportunities for older students too. After secondary school, they can come back again – be it at ITE, polytechnic or university. So we want OBS to become a rite of passage for all young Singaporeans.

This new campus is not just about having more participants. It is about broadening who can take part in, and benefit from the OBS experience, and about creating new possibilities for what OBS can offer.

The campus has been designed to be accessible. So young people of different abilities can take part in activities together.

It is a sustainable campus, carefully integrated with its natural surroundings, so participants learn not only to navigate nature, but also to respect and care for it.

And its location creates new possibilities for expeditions linking Coney Island with other OBS sites at Ubin and East Coast.

Of course, a new campus is only part of the story.

What matters most is what our young people experience here – and what they take away with them, from this experience.

So we will continue to improve the OBS programmes, including new elements on well-being, giving students practical ways to manage stress, recover from setbacks and support one another.

We will also continue investing in the professional development of our outdoor adventure educators. Our instructors are at the heart of the OBS experience. So, to all our instructors here, thank you very much for the work that you do. Our instructors maintain rigorous standards of safety, and they do much more than that. They encourage young people to take that extra step, to keep going when things get tough, and to discover strengths that they never had.

This campus is the result of, as I said just now, many years of planning and partnership.

I also want to thank everyone who has made this possible – the staff and instructors, planners and architects, contractors, different government agencies, volunteers and community partners. Thank you very much!

Through your hard work, you have created more than a new campus. You have created new opportunities for generations of young Singaporeans – to grow, to discover what they can do, and to forge bonds with one another.

Congratulations everyone once again on the opening of OBS Coney.

May OBS continue to challenge and inspire generations of young Singaporeans – to be resilient in adversity, confident in themselves, and committed to one another.

And may they continue to live by the enduring OBS spirit: “To serve, to strive, and not to yield.” Thank you very much!