PARENTS OF POOR CHILDREN SHORTCHANGED?
Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh’s recent announcement in Kota Kinabalu, that parents who send their children for sports training or undergo such activity themselves might qualify for personal tax relief starting next year, is a welcome move but was it well thought off?
The proposal under Budget 2024 had been presented to the Finance Ministry.
While it was well received by parents who have played an active role in the development of their children in the sports of their choice, with extra and special coaching programmes and training, it has left many wondering what happens to children from poorer families.
Poorer families naturally do not have the means to send their children for individual personalised training outside the school curriculum.
Maybe incentives like subsidies for poor parents who choose to engage coaches to coach their children, should be considered to have a wider base.
Or does it mean that children from poor parents are going to be ruled out from excelling in sports to higher levels or they just have to depend on the schools’ sports programme in place and hopefully rise from there.
Maybe we are resigned to the fact that we are just going to depend on children of the well-to-do families who can offer their children specialised training for our future ‘stars’.
Next question is whether Sabah was the right place to announce the ‘tax relief’, as a majority of the population are still in the low bracket of income. How would this benefit the people of Sabah?
The Minister had made the announcement after launching the Sabah Sports Industry Expo 2023 this week.
She had said that the move could be among the ways to encourage parents to send their kids for training, which would in turn help with sports development in the country.
How can poor parents afford to send their children for extra training on their own?
Currently tax relief is only given for the purchase of sports equipment.
The proposed tax relief will also cover parents undergo training themselves and qualify with the aim to indirectly encourage people to practise a healthy lifestyle, besides getting children to be involved in sports from a young age.
This proposal was made in view of wanting the sports industry to develop.
The announcement was made in line with the fact that the sports industry contributed some RM14bil, or 0.9%, to the nation’s gross domestic product.
All well and good, but a serious thought has to be given to sports development in schools and for all, instead of ‘select’ groups.
Yes, there are various programmes in place, but it has to be seriously reviewed by the Ministry of Sports with the Ministry of Education.
The Sports Ministry and Education Ministry, without doubt have to work hand-in-hand and not in isolation or have their own programmes.
Already it is fast being said that ‘Schools are the graveyard of sports.’
It used to be ‘Universities are the graveyards of sports’ but that has changed in recent years as Universities are big into sports these days.
Today, sports has become an integral part of the university system. There are inter-university games, inter-college and higher learning institution games and inter-university leagues for football, hockey, squash and bowling, among others.
University students also compete in the Asean and World Universities Games and many of our national athletes are products of the universities.
But while schools have been contributors too, but much more can be expected from them with better involvement with better programmes as they are the grassroot where development starts.
Sadly, schools, which were the nursery for sports in the country, are slowly but surely losing their relevance.
Yes, we have national sports schools and sports excellence schools in the various states, while the Ministry of Education has leagues for football and some other sports. True, the Malaysian Schools Sports Council has programmes for 24 sports for Under-12, Under-15 and Under-18. However, these only benefit a select group of students.
Efforts have to be made to build a wider base and to cater for late bloomers, and this can only be achieved through mass participation at national schools, something that is slowly disappearing.
Even the ‘1 student 1 sport’ programme has its shortcomings, with students not allowed to participate in the sport of their choice. Or there are not enough qualified teachers to groom them and the hours dedicated to sports activity are limited.
Gone are the days when we had inter-class and inter-house games before the school team was selected for various sports. The school athletics and swimming meets were grand affairs.
Teachers, who were a dedicated lot, played a key role in the development of sports in schools.
Without any discrimination intended, today, almost 70% of school teachers are women and expecting them to chart the future of Malaysian sports is probably asking for the impossible.
Physical educations periods are now divided into physical session on field and health classroom sessions. Each session lasting 30 minutes, sees two sessions of PE on field and two classroom sessions.
The 1 student 1 sport programme is held once week after school hours for two hour to three hours and only for 12 weeks for the number of sports decided by the school (most schools have six to eight sports) culminating with ‘Hari Sukan’ for all the sports (competition).
There are selection for various sports by schools for Inter-District tournament and they train separately for a few weeks before competition. The competition itself is held on a carnival basis over three or four days.
At the national level, competitions are also held during during holidays.
Question is whether this is enough and done well to benefit the development of our future sportsmen and women.
If only the top priority were given for grassroots development, Malaysian sports would surely have a bright future.
The issue of disappearing fields and those in atrocious conditions needs to be urgently addressed too.
Is enough being done in schools to promote sports, is the million ringgit question.
Isolated incentives for a select Group is certainly not the answer to improving development at the grassroots.
