Indoor Sports Facilities Used for Coaching

Ms See Jinli Jean asked the Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (a) in each of the last five years, what is the total number of indoor sports facilities used for coaching; (b) whether there are plans to increase the pool of such facilities to meet the increasing demand for commercial coaching services for sports and, if so, what is the forecasted rate of increase over the next 10 years; and (c) how are such facilities being made available and affordable to micro-enterprises which offer such commercial coaching services.

The Government seeks to encourage as many Singaporeans as possible to participate in sports and physical exercise to support active and healthy living and promote social cohesion.

In tandem, we have been expanding the number of sports facilities to meet Singaporeans’ needs. These include a variety of sporting facilities in ActiveSG Sport Centres, People's Association community clubs, Ministry of Education school facilities that are open for public use under the Dual Use Scheme (DUS), and free-to-play sports facilities located conveniently in our housing estates.

Our ActiveSG Sport Centres offer affordable subsidised rates and primarily serve the needs of members of the public who want to play sports, rather than the needs of private coaches or commercial sports service providers. As such, the facilities in the sport centres are primarily open to bookings by members of the public and we do not track the usage by private coaches. Our sport centres also host training programmes under ActiveSG’s Academies and Clubs as well as those organised by accredited programme partners and National Sport Associations to develop our pipeline of athletes. We will continue to expand our sports facilities primarily to meet the needs of our residents and athletes.

SportSG supports coaches by (a) maintaining the National Registry of Coaches (NROC) and requiring some public agencies to hire only NROC-registered coaches, while also publicising their profiles for search by the general public; and (b) upskilling them by providing free or subsidised continuing coach education courses.