I have always thought so but in Parliament last week, it seems that I am not the only person to think so. Well done Jessie Phua! Like when we tried to tell them that BMX was an Olympic sport, and tried to get funding, they did not listen. Source is from the Straits Times.
HER speech was short and her voice mellow, but Nominated MP Jessie Phua pulled no punches when taking the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) to task in Parliament yesterday.
At one point, she told the SSC point-blank: It’s time to get your house in order.
Ms Phua criticised the SSC for reducing its financial support for athletes even as Singapore was facing rising living costs.
She said a top athlete such as bowler Remy Ong, who won three Asian and two SEA Games gold medals, could get up to $8,000 a year under the Training Assistance Grant in 1999. This has been reduced to $7,200.
Ms Phua, the president of the Singapore Bowling Federation, said that while the amount from GLOW (or Grant for Loss of Wages) had remained unchanged since 2000, the qualifying criterion for a top athlete had risen from a SEA Games gold to an Asian Games or a world championship medal.
She noted wryly: ‘Isn’t it amazing how, on the one hand, the bar has been raised for qualification but, on the other hand, the funding for training has remained constant or even been reduced?’
Ms Phua said the SSC was either ‘very detached from reality or, even worse, knows but chooses to do nothing’.
She added: ‘Can we really, in good faith, entrust the SSC with the development of our athletes?’
She urged the SSC to keep up with the times and one area it should start was in the people it employed. She said she understood that staff turnover at the SSC was ‘very high’.
She offered one possible reason: job dissatisfaction. ‘Many get disillusioned by an oversized portfolio, a multi-layered decision-making process and little empowerment,’ she said.
For example, she said the SSC had only one sports psychologist on its payroll to meet the needs of athletes from the 60 national sports associations (NSAs) here.
Mr Teo Ser Luck, Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, agreed that there were problems in the SSC.
It would have to work closely with the NSAs to identify the problems and close the gaps, he said.
‘There’s still room for improvement. These are how organisations are run with day-to-day challenges. We should not give up but continue to give support.’
Source : Straits Times - 06 March 2008
HER speech was short and her voice mellow, but Nominated MP Jessie Phua pulled no punches when taking the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) to task in Parliament yesterday.
At one point, she told the SSC point-blank: It’s time to get your house in order.
Ms Phua criticised the SSC for reducing its financial support for athletes even as Singapore was facing rising living costs.
She said a top athlete such as bowler Remy Ong, who won three Asian and two SEA Games gold medals, could get up to $8,000 a year under the Training Assistance Grant in 1999. This has been reduced to $7,200.
Ms Phua, the president of the Singapore Bowling Federation, said that while the amount from GLOW (or Grant for Loss of Wages) had remained unchanged since 2000, the qualifying criterion for a top athlete had risen from a SEA Games gold to an Asian Games or a world championship medal.
She noted wryly: ‘Isn’t it amazing how, on the one hand, the bar has been raised for qualification but, on the other hand, the funding for training has remained constant or even been reduced?’
Ms Phua said the SSC was either ‘very detached from reality or, even worse, knows but chooses to do nothing’.
She added: ‘Can we really, in good faith, entrust the SSC with the development of our athletes?’
She urged the SSC to keep up with the times and one area it should start was in the people it employed. She said she understood that staff turnover at the SSC was ‘very high’.
She offered one possible reason: job dissatisfaction. ‘Many get disillusioned by an oversized portfolio, a multi-layered decision-making process and little empowerment,’ she said.
For example, she said the SSC had only one sports psychologist on its payroll to meet the needs of athletes from the 60 national sports associations (NSAs) here.
Mr Teo Ser Luck, Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, agreed that there were problems in the SSC.
It would have to work closely with the NSAs to identify the problems and close the gaps, he said.
‘There’s still room for improvement. These are how organisations are run with day-to-day challenges. We should not give up but continue to give support.’
Source : Straits Times - 06 March 2008
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