Debated in Parliament on 5 Jul 2021.
Mr Sharael Taha asked the Minister for Education what is the framework to bring back the National School Games for sports such as football, hockey, netball and floorball in a safe and lower-risk environment for our schools.
MOE takes a calibrated approach to the resumption of the National School Games (NSG) to ensure the safety and well-being of our students and staff. Apart from taking alignment to the national posture and Safe Management Measures (SMMs), we also consider factors such as type of sports, the age and number of student participants, the type of venue used, as well as the level of intermingling between students from different schools.
A phased resumption of the NSG would typically start with low-risk non-contact sports such as Badminton, Table Tennis, Tennis and Volleyball before higher-risk contact sports such as Basketball, Football, Hockey and Rugby are considered. These sports involve high bodily contact between student participants and therefore, carry a greater risk. Furthermore, resumption of contact sports is likely to start with older students from Junior Colleges/Millenia Institute and Secondary Schools, as most of them would have been vaccinated.
For NSG 2021, 12 non-contact sports deemed to be of low risk were resumed for ‘A’, ‘B’ and Senior Divisions in the first semester. These competitions were suspended in May as we entered Phase Two (Heightened Alert) and all remaining competitions in NSG 2021 have been cancelled, given the need to minimise intermingling of students from different schools in line with the gradual resumption of student activities at the start of Term 3. MOE is continuing to monitor the public health situation closely and will work towards the safe resumption of NSG in 2022.
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