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AUG 2, 2004

'Boot camp' for success

S'pore students have been doing the country proud, garnering medals at international competitions in a variety of fields including the arts, media and robotics. But what does it take to produce winners?

HO AI LI finds out

FOR a month, students are housed on campus, isolated from their family and friends and made to train for eight hours a day, Mondays to Saturdays.

Welcome to Singapore Polytechnic's 'boot camp' which aims to get students up to scratch for the WorldSkills Competition, a biennial contest that tests technical skills in designing circuits and repairing machines, in which youths from more than 30 countries take part.

The poly's no-nonsense approach - complaints from participants' girlfriends are common - has gained it four gold medals, two silver and one bronze, since 1995.

Gruelling training sessions or not, students here have been winning international competitions, and not just in academic fields and robotics. They have been recognised for achievements in
areas like the arts, media and voluntary work.

For example, Nanyang Polytechnic students have won top prizes at animation and website designing competitions, while Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) students have notched up successes at film festivals abroad.

While the Ministry of Education and the tertiary institutions cannot provide statistics on whether students are winning more international prizes than ever, the youngsters have been improving their performance in certain areas.

Last month for instance, school choirs from Singapore bagged seven gold medals at the Choir Olympics in Germany, the Republic's best showing since it started participating in the competition in 2000.

Choral Directors Society of Singapore chairman Nelson Kwei said: 'More and more choirs are going abroad... Hearing more high-standard choirs has inspired us to work even harder.'
Mr Kwei, a conductor, also credits the MOE's Choral Excellence Programme for providing grants for school choirs and bringing foreign experts here to conduct classes.

Youngsters here not only sing well, they score vocally in other ways too. The NUS law students, for instance, have made a name for themselves in oral advocacy, coming out top in six international contests in the last three years.

Associate Professor Robert Beckman of the law faculty said: 'The tradition of excellence is maintained because NUS mooting (oral advocacy) alumni help train the moot teams by serving as judges in practice rounds.'

Meanwhile, in the WorldSkills Competition, Singapore has been creeping up the ladder in the last 10 years. The country was ranked seventh at last year's contest, up from the 16th place it occupied when it began taking part.

The chairman of the WorldSkills Singapore Council, Dr Law Song Seng, believes the success reflects 'the quality of our education systems, technical skills and competitiveness of our workforce'.

Singapore Poly graduate and 1999 WorldSkills gold medallist Soh Teck Leong said he has learnt from taking part in the contest.

'I learnt beyond the syllabus. It was very good exposure.'

Copyright @ 2004 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.

posted by Marcus Ang @ 8:46 AM