SINGAPORE — Following the official opening of the ActiveSG Football Academy earlier this month, two other sports academies and a sports club will be launched later this year as part of efforts to encourage more people to participate in more sports.

Mr Baey Yam Keng, the Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY), announced in Parliament yesterday that Basketball and Tennis Academies, as well as an Athletics Club, will be rolled out in the coming months.

Besides encouraging more Singaporeans to play sports and lead an active lifestyle, the ActiveSG sports academies and clubs also aim to improve the overall ecosystem of sports participation in Singapore, while helping to unify the nation through sports.

The academies will focus on offering youths structured programmes and pathways to gain new skills and improve. The sports clubs will provide Singaporeans, both young and old, opportunities to enter competitions at community level, join or form interest groups, and take part in mass participation events.

“It will give more opportunities for the public to pick up a new sport, develop both sporting and life skills, and possibly go on to pursue the sport competitively,” said Mr Baey.

Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu added: “These leagues and community clubs will complement and supplement the schools and address concerns such as an inability to get into a school team, and provide opportunities to play even when a sport is not covered by a particular school.”

To further increase public participation in sports, the Government’s Sports Facilities Master Plan (SFMP) will also look at ensuring sports facilities within a 10-minute walk from the majority of homes by 2030.

In response to Member of Parliament Lee Bee Wah’s (Nee Soon GRC) question on improving sporting facilities, Mr Baey said the MCCY is continuing to work on several major projects in Bedok, Punggol, Sembawang and Tampines as part of the SFMP. But because public-sector infrastructure projects at the national level have to be phased to manage constraints, such as in construction manpower, these upcoming developments will be rolled out over a longer term, “probably after 2020”.

Mr Baey added that, to provide more spaces for people to play sports, Sport Singapore will work with the Ministry of Education to open up all remaining fenced fields and indoor sports halls in Government primary and secondary schools by 2020 under the Dual-Use Scheme.

Business consultant Izhar Khalid, 37, told TODAY that these new initiatives would make it easier for his family to be more active in sports, and stated an interest in signing his eight-year-old daughter up for the tennis academy once it opens.

“My daughter has expressed her interest in tennis before, but it’s not a co-curricular activity in her school, so she hasn’t been able to play the sport much,” said Mr Izhar, who lives in Tampines. “So it’s great that there’s going to be a tennis academy for children that is in my vicinity in future.” NOAH TAN