INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read. 2.43 pm

The Minister of State of Education (Dr Tay Eng Soon): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The amendment to the Institute of Education Act is connected mainly with my Ministry's plan to set up a Physical Education College. In 1969, Professor Sasaki, a Japanese expert in Physical Education, visited Singapore to study our school physical education programme. Among some of his observations of our school children, he noted that they were not getting enough strenuous exercise. Many of our school fields were empty compared with Japanese school fields. He also commented:

"Compared to Japanese children, there are many slim boys and girls in Singapore."

He was referring to their thin arms and legs.

That was in 1969, 15 years ago. Today, with better diet, our children are not as slim as when Professor Sasaki saw them. But the need for a proper physical education programme in our schools continues to exist. The need is not only to improve the physical fitness of our urban flat-dwelling children and to prepare the boys to be more fit for National Service. Good physical education would improve overall the health of our people and cut down on our national health cost. The recreational and social aspects of physical education would have far-reaching benefits as our society becomes more affluent and can afford leisure activities.

Professor Sasaki recommended that a physical education college should be set up to train full-time physical education teachers if we wanted to give physical education its due priority in our schools. Unfortunately, we had many other more pressing matters in education in the years after the Sasaki report. However, three years ago, we decided to address the problem of physical education and to give it due priority in our schools. Our major constraint is not enough qualified physical education teachers. At present, we have only 60 physical education teachers who have undergone full-time courses overseas. A well-run physical education programme in our secondary schools and junior colleges alone would require 700 full-time physical education teachers.

To meet this need, my Ministry has decided to set up a College of Physical Education. An autonomous college would be able to focus its full attention on all aspects of physical education. It will not only be training teachers for our schools. It will also be working with bodies such as the Singapore Armed Forces, the Singapore Sports Council, the People's Association and the Police to meet their physical education manpower needs. As leisure needs in Singapore increase in the future, it is conceivable that coaches, sports club administrators and others will be in demand. The Physical Education College would have a growing role as a centre for training and research.

The planning for the new Physical Education College is in an advanced stage and key personnel have been appointed. The first intake of about 50 students will take place in July this year. The College will be located at the Institute of Education campus at Bukit Timah Road with which it will be sharing facilities.

The proposed amendments to the Institute of Education Act are to enable the Institute of Education Council to establish autonomous colleges such as the Physical Education College in addition to the Institute of Education. The college or colleges will be directly responsible to the Institute of Education Council and the head of the college will be a member of the council.

Opportunity is also taken at this time to move several other amendments to the Institute of Education Act, the most important of which is the composition of the membership of the Institute of Education Council. The amendment allows the Minister in charge of the Institute of Education to appoint members in their personal capacity instead of the present provisions in which members are appointed as representatives of specific organizations. This will give more flexibility to the Minister to appoint members to the Institute of Education Council.

The amendments will not in any way affect the powers of the Institute of Education Council nor the position of the Director of the Institute of Education as the Head of the Statutory Organization.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed. 2.50 pm

Mr Jeyaretnam: Mr Speaker, Sir, my main purpose in rising to speak on this Bill is really to ask for a clarification and for an assurance from the Minister of State for Education who has moved the Second Reading of this Bill. He said that the main purpose of this Bill is to provide for the setting up of a College of Physical Education to train teachers for physical education of pupils in schools.

The present Act, Mr Speaker, Sir, in outlining the object and the purpose of the Institute Council has something to this effect - that it shall provide courses of study for the training of teachers in all fields of education. The amendment now is that it should provide training of teachers and other persons in the various fields of sports and education. I have two observations to make on this. Sports, as I understand it, is wider than physical education. The Minister says the whole object is to try and provide teachers for the teaching of physical education in schools.

The second point is this. I am a bit curious as to why sports would appear, from this provision in the Act, to rank a greater priority than education. As I said, the present Act talks about "in all fields and at all levels of education." I should have thought the setting up of the College (of Physical Education) would have come within that objective. But we now have an amendment to bring in sports, and sports is mentioned before education. Are we to understand that the Ministry now proposes to divert a lot of its attention to sports rather than the education of our children? We have seen reports in the papers of the Minister of State visiting schools to inspect latrines to see that they are kept clean. That, may I suggest, is not really the purpose of the Ministry of Education.

Are we to understand now that the Ministry is turning its attention to training our children, not educating them but training them for the various sports? May we have that assurance that the objective of the Ministry of Education which is to educate our children will not be lost sight of in this objective of sports and physical education?

Dr Tay Eng Soon: Mr Speaker, Sir, I think the Member for Anson has a very narrow view of education. We take a much wider view of education in which we believe that education embraces all curriculum matters in school. It embraces sports. It embraces education in social responsibility and citizenship. So whether we have put the word "sports" before "education" in the Act or whether we have put the words the other way round, I do not think there is any doubt at all in our minds what our objectives for the Institute of Education are, and the Member can rest assured that we will not lose sight of these objectives.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Dr Tay Eng Soon].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.