Student-athletes get a sporting chance in business

SINGAPORE — Student-athletes interested in taking on jobs in the burgeoning sports business industry in Singapore can now be equipped with the knowledge to do so in their post-secondary education, as Singapore Sports School (SSP) teamed up with Ngee Ann Polytechnic to launch a customised Diploma in Business Studies programme yesterday.

The diploma, with an Entrepreneurship Management option, will take in its first cohort of 25 students in January next year. While priority for admission is given to SSP students, the three-year course — which includes a six-month internship at various companies — will also be open to student-athletes from mainstream schools.

The course — with its admission criteria including sporting and academic considerations — was developed after consultation with past and present students of SSP, as well as student-athletes from mainstream schools. The subject of a business course to help students take on future jobs in the sports business sector came up consistently in the feedback gathered, said SSP principal Tan Teck Hock.

“It is well known that business courses can be generic. At the sports school, we do not want to limit the students’ career options, but we want to help them to lean on their natural advantage as sportsmen and exploit that,” he said. “So they need not just go on to be sports coaches or PE (physical education) teachers.

“I am often reminded that we very often guide our students to very traditional job pathways. But (as we) think about the sports industry right now, the events at the Sports Hub, and the number of foreigners who have been brought in to fill the jobs, we see that the (job) possibilities are endless.

“The number of people organising a sporting event in Singapore, be it world-class competitions in rugby, football or tennis, is just staggering. These jobs often pay well, too.

“If you ask me could our students start their own sports businesses, be a sports journalist, go into sports design to market something, or be sports administrators at some of our National Sports Associations, I would say yes, and there is help for that.”

Edlyn Ho, a 2015 South-east Asian (SEA) Games gold medal-winning gymnast, is one of 15 SSP students who has already signed up for Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s diploma.

“I was attracted to the Diploma in Business Studies because it helps me with my future (career path),” said the 17-year-old. “I’d like to set up my own gymnastics club in the future, and I can leverage on both my skills and knowledge in gymnastics, and also acquire the business management know-how to do that.”

SSP also offers one other customised polytechnic diploma — the Diploma in Sports and Leisure Management in collaboration with Republic Polytechnic, which was launched in 2010. Both diplomas are through-train pathways to post-secondary education, and bypass the O-Level examinations.

“Many student-athletes immerse themselves in sports for a big part of their lives, and for every person who admits into the SSP boarding school, (we want them to know that) they are not giving up their life interests, as we are looking increasingly more into offering them very viable options and pathways,” said Tan.

SSP’s launch of the new diploma yesterday is part of the recommendations of the strategic review by the school, initiated in 2014 in response to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s challenge for it to “become a national sports academy of excellence”.

Tan said: “It kick-started that whole process of us thinking about how can we enhance our academic offerings, and how can we ensure that we have sufficient long pathways and options for student-athletes?”