Article:
- Title: Debate rages on…Is the foreign talent scheme working?
- Author: Leonard Lim
- Publisher: The Sunday Times
- Date: 9/03/08
Synopsis
The Foreign Sports Talent (FST) Scheme , created in 1993, was meant to help Singapore in sporting. Singapore only had 5 million people, and very few citizens “willing to commit to a life of pursuing sporting excellence”, hence there was a need to bring in promising talents from overseas. This would not only help Singapore gain recognition, it could also influence local talents and inspire them. However, it caused local talents to not get recognized and being left out.
Insights
The FST has its own pros and cons. The main reason why it was implemented was so that Singapore would be a major opponent in the sporting arena, able to pit itself against other strong countries. Singapore has only 5 million people, compared to 1.3 billion people in China. If Singapore has 100 people willing to devote themselves to a life of sports, China would have 26000 people. With more people, the range of talents can be greater and the potential to do better is also bigger. This is just an example of how much more talents countries like China would have than Singapore. Hence, there is a need to import people from these countries in order for Singapore to be a bigger name in sports. Without the foreign talents, Singapore would most likely never have gotten any medals in any competition.
However there is another motive to the FST and it is to influence the local talents in Singapore. By bringing in foreign talents who excel in their specific area of sports, local talents can be inspired by the amount of determination and hard work that these foreign talents put in. When they want to achieve something, they will do their best to get it. Also, playing with people of high standards will also raise the bars for local talents and this will in a way affect the standards of the Singapore players.
However with the FST, it also brings about some bad points. Local talents are being pushed out of the scene, with majority of the national team players being foreign talents. When too many foreign talents are in the national team, Singapore will be seen as a country that has no talents and needs to rely on other countries in order to do well. Local talents will also not be recognized and if any medals are won, the credit would go mostly to the foreign talents. The lack of space for local talents will also mean that they have less chance in proving themselves and fewer opportunities to play for Singapore.
Also, Singapore is focusing too much on the foreign talents, neglecting the development of local talents. As a result of too many foreigners on the team, most of the attention and priority will be given to them during trainings. Those not in team would naturally be 2nd priority and not as important as the first team. Hence, the development of local talents would be retarded and they would not advance as much.
There are also other issues at hand. Foreign talents are not given enough opportunities to showcase their talents in Singapore. As a result, many of them are returning back to their countries just so that they have more chances to compete in top-quality tournaments and competition from more talented foreign talents.
