PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS (Steps to improve)

Mr S. Chandra Das asked the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education what steps are being taken by his Ministry to improve the teaching of physical education in schools.

Dr Tay Eng Soon (for the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education): Mr Speaker, Sir, the subject of improving physical education in. schools has been discussed at length within my Ministry and at meetings with the Schools Council. It is generally agreed that, with a few honourable exceptions, the standard of physical education instruction is poor. A good PE programme is a combination of curricular gymnastics, track and field activities, games and swimming. But such a programme requires trained PE teachers of whom, unfortunately, we have very few. My Ministry is therefore studying the feasibility of setting up a PE college to produce PE teachers in sufficient numbers.

In the meantime, the physical fitness of boys has to be improved to better prepare them for National Service. My Ministry has therefore introduced a pilot swimming programme in six secondary schools, to be followed by another 14 schools in 1982, to develop the physical fitness of boys. Under the swimming programme, PE lessons in these schools would be exclusively swimming. Swimming has been selected as a means to develop physical fitness of boys for the following reasons:

(i) a swimming teacher can be trained in a relatively shorter time than an all-round PE teacher;

(ii) a swimming pool is more effective in terms of space utilization than large playing fields in land-scarce Singapore a swimming pool can be used simultaneously by 80 or so persons in an area less than one-fifth of a playing field; and

(iii) swimming is proven as a good exercise for developing aerobic capacity. The swimming programme will be extended to more schools as more teachers are trained as swimming instructors.

At the same time, my Ministry has deployed the few trained PE teachers we have to 14 secondary schools and junior colleges in 1982 to teach a PE programme consisting of a combination of physical conditioning activities, curricular gymnastics, track and field and games to help improve the physical fitness of students.