Students' Participation in Co-curricular Activities

Madam, co-curricular Activities (CCAs) are an integral part

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of holistic education. They provide an important platform for students' character development while allowing them to discover and develop their interests and talents.

Students can take part in CCAs without having to go for performances or competitions. Schools offer a range of CCAs to meet the needs of the students. While there are CCAs that provide more competition experiences, students can choose from the many that are recreational or focus on serving the community, for example, the Interact Club or the Service Learning Club.

Some schools also offer modular CCAs or recreational sports CCAs, where students do not represent the school in competitions. I can give Members two examples. Jurong View Secondary School, for example, offers recreational football and badminton as CCAs, and St Hilda's Secondary School offers recreational volleyball and netball as CCAs.

Beyond CCAs, many schools offer enrichment programmes in sports and the arts that provide students with quality exposure but which do not culminate in competitions or performances. In certain CCAs, particularly those related to music and dance, public performances are useful platforms to enrich the experiences of students, helping them to develop confidence and a mindset of excellence.

While competitions should not be overdone, they have a place in developing attributes, such as grit, determination, resilience and teamwork.

MOE does not set Key Performance Indicators for schools in CCAs. Earlier, schools had received recognition in the form of awards for aesthetics, uniformed groups, sports and academic value-added. From 2014, MOE has simplified the recognition system and these awards have been removed. Instead, the emphasis is on recognition of school's quality practices in delivering a holistic education, such as the best practice award for Character and Citizenship Education. Revisions have also been made to the Singapore Youth Festival since 2013 to better emphasise the process of learning and enjoyment of the arts.

MOE will continue to work closely with schools to strike a good balance for students' holistic development. While schools do strive to meet students' diverse needs by providing a range of CCAs, it is not feasible for every CCA to be in every school. We recognise and we encourage parents, students and schools to keep the channels of communication open as they monitor students' development through the different learning activities so that they benefit from a well-balanced education.

Thank you, Mdm Speaker. Very often, I receive feedback from parents that, in preparing for their annual school concert, their children will have to

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practise until late at night and, very often, many days a week. Is there anything that MOE can advise the school accordingly, so as not to over-tax the students?

Next, I have many residents who took up table tennis during the PCF programme and then went to Primary school. Many Primary schools do not offer table tennis as a CCA and the reason I think is because of funding. I would like to ask MOE whether there is any additional funding that the school can apply for if there is a certain demand, for example, if many students are asking for table tennis as a CCA.

In my reply, I mentioned that we work with schools to ensure that CCA is not burdensome. CCA is part of the holistic development of the student and their education, but we will advise schools as appropriately as possible if they have overdone certain things in certain CCAs. On specific CCA type, for example, table tennis, we leave it to the school to decide on which sports they want to promote or teach the students. We give them a block fund and we leave it to them to decide on the sports, aesthetics or the arts that they want to promote. But if a school needs to have an additional CCA or sport, for example, to promote or open to their students, then they can raise funds on their own so that the students can benefit.