12MP: Enhancing sports excellence among strategies to make Malaysia an active nation

KUALA LUMPUR: Enhancing sports excellence on the global stage, is among the three main strategies outlined in the 12th Malaysia Plan to leverage sports as a medium to make Malaysia an active nation.

According to the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP) (2021-2025) document issued by Economic Planning Unit (EPU) today, the other two strategies are promoting sports for active and healthy living, and developing the sports industry to boost the contribution of the industry to the economy.

The document stated that various initiatives such as strengthening the governance of high performance sports (HPS), enhancing the performance of athletes, improving support services for sports and uplifting the wellbeing of athletes will be undertaken to ensure national athletes continue to excel.

"The professionalism of National Sports Associations (NSAs) will be enhanced through capacity building programmes. NSAs will also be encouraged to hire former national athletes to tap their experience and skills.

"The participation of athletes in specialised training programmes and competitive tournaments at local and international levels will be increased. Collaboration with the NSAs will be strengthened to organise more international standard tournaments to provide athletes with adequate exposure," said the document.

The government also plans to build more dedicated training facilities for HPS to increase accessibility and availability of training venues for the athletes, besides specific programmes in schools and higher education institutions as well as empowering the State Sports Councils to identify and train new talents.

In uplifting the wellbeing of the athletes, a study will be undertaken to introduce social protection, including after retirement, besides greater attention towards providing better education, career development and capacity building programmes to enable them to be involved in sports-related businesses and pursue vocations such as coaching, personal trainers and technical officials.

Meanwhile, the National Sports Vision (VSN) 2030, a continuation of the National Sports Policy 2009, will be introduced to set a new direction to build Malaysia as a sporting nation by 2030.

In achieving the strategy, concerted efforts will be undertaken to promote sports culture, among others through enhancing accessibility to sports facilities, strengthening community-based sports bodies and promote inclusive participation in sports.

"Continuous engagement with local authorities and community leaders will be undertaken to ensure that the development of new sports facilities and recreational areas are based on the needs of local communities.

"Existing public sports facilities will also be upgraded and properly maintained, while private sector and sports bodies will be encouraged to provide more sports facilities for public use. Specific facilities to cater for the needs of target groups such as persons with disabilities, elderly and women will be provided in the development of new sports facilities and recreational areas," the document stated.

In making the sports industry as a new source of growth, the government wants to improve the industry's ecosystem and promote sports tourism by hosting or organising sports events such as recreational sports, e-sports and extreme sports.

The 12MP document also reported that, though there's an exciting improvement in active lifestyle with the participation of mass sports increasing from 59.8 per cent in 2017 to 63 per cent in 2020, inclusive participation is still below satisfactory, while accessibility and maintenance of sports facilities was still low.

It also stated that the performance of the national athletes is not consistent and lack of new talent identification affected the HPS and the efforts to replenish the elite athletes group.

-- BERNAMA