Australia Institute of Sport, Singapore Sports School serve as blueprint for NAS

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s National Academy of Sports is considering the rewarding framework adopted by the Singapore Sports School and the Australian Institute of Sport to produce superior Filipino student-athletes.

NAS executive director Prof. Josephine Reyes said they are seriously looking at these two institutions in crafting their curriculum for the school designed to integrate academic and sports programs in a world-class environment.

“I’m thinking of visiting the Singapore Sports School to benchmark its system as well as other schools that have similar models,” said Reyes, the Philippines Sports Commission’s Sports Physiology Unit head.

The Singapore Sports School has been playing a vital role in slowly shaping the tiny island-nation from an average performer in the Southeast Asian Games to a sports power in the region.

After Singapore founded its sports school in 2004, the country had finished in the overall medal tally ahead of the Philippines in four of the last eight editions of the SEA Games.

The Philippines has a population of over 100 million compared to Singapore’s 5.7 million.

Reyes said they are looking to open the inaugural school year of the NAS to student-athletes in August next year with a group of highly qualified coaches and highly skilled faculty who are really exposed to sports science.

“I hope everything will be built by that time—the infrastructure, the academy’s structure, facilities and system have already been set up,” said Reyes, who spearheads the Sports Mapping Action Research Talent Identification of the PSC.

As for the Australian Institute of Sport, Reyes said the PSC has already embraced the Canberra-based institute’s talent identification program.

“AIS has created elite programs that we want to adopt. In fact, our own sports talent identification program was conceptualized based on their talent-search program,” said Reyes.

The AIS is a high-performance sports training institution founded by the Australian government in 1981. Australia has since produced 86 gold medals in the Olympics.

Apart from Singapore and Australia, Reyes said part of the PH talent ID was likewise influenced by Malaysia’s talent-search program.