All Secondary 3 students to go through five-day OBS from 2020

SINGAPORE –  All Secondary 3 students will go through a five-day Outward Bound Singapore (OBS) expedition-based camp, under the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) new National Outdoor Adventure Education Masterplan.

The camp will be piloted with some schools next year, and eventually rolled out to all schools from 2020, when the OBS’ second campus, on Coney Island, is expected to be ready. 

Giving details of the masterplan during his ministry’s Committee of Supply debate on Friday (April 8), Acting Minister for Education (Schools) Ng Chee Meng said: “Schools camps are another way of immersing our students in authentic, often challenging situations, where they need to work in teams and learn to take responsibility for decisions they make. 

“These experiences develop a culture of self-reliance and mutual support with their peers.”

The MOE will co-design the camp  programme with OBS, and partner the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth to build the new OBS campus on Coney Island. The camp will also mix students from various schools. 

Last month, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu said every Singaporean youth will have the opportunity to attend an OBS camp at least once in their schooling years, noting that building up rugged youths is pertinent amid the threat of terrorism and an increasingly diverse society.

Currently, students participate in about two or three school cohort camps at upper primary and secondary levels.

OBS currently has a campus on Pulau Ubin. Beyond the OBS campuses, existing facilities at the MOE’s Outdoor Adventure Learning Centres in Dairy Farm, Changi Coast, Labrador and Jalan Bahtera were upgraded last year to better cater to students’ learning needs. 

Other existing campsites will be rejuvenated and upgraded over the next few years to provide enough capacity for all upper-primary and lower-secondary school cohort camps and uniformed groups in schools.

Mr Ng added that the MOE will continue to partner outdoor adventure service providers to offer varied programmes locally and overseas. 

To raise the quality of outdoor education programmes, the MOE will also be building a team of full-time Outdoor Adventure Educators to design and conduct cohort camps for school. Since last year, the ministry has been working with OBS and Republic Polytechnic to provide training for teachers and outdoor instructors.

Mr Ng stressed that the safety of the students remains “paramount” even as outdoor education is enhanced and expanded. To that end, an advisory panel for outdoor adventure learning has been appointed to advise MOE on raising the quality and safety of its outdoor learning programmes.
 
The panel, which will be chaired by the National University of Singapore’s Dr Tan Lai Yong from the College of Alice & Peter Tan, will include parent representatives, as well as local and international experts with a diverse range of experience including medical emergencies and evacuations and natural hazards.