TOWARDS MORE REFEREES AND COACHES: Participants, lecturers and instructors posing with (seated from left, front row) Chin, Mohammad and Chai during the course.
KUCHING: Institute of Teacher Education Malaysia Tun Abdul Razak Campus (IPGKTAR) and the Sarawak Volleyball Association (Sava) aim to produce more coaches and referees to uplift the standard of volleyball in Sarawak and the country.
The two organisations had jointly trained 45 trainee teachers as coaches and referees last year. IPGKTAR and Sava have since organised another five-day Volleyball Refereeing Course Level I at IPGKTAR in Batu Lintang for 42 trainee teachers last week.
“We organised a similar course last year and out of the 45 participants, 20 who are majoring in Pendidikan Jasmani have graduated,” said Head of Physical Education and Health Department (Jabatan PJK) Chin Ngien Siong.
Chin said one of the main objectives of the IPG under the Ministry of Education is to ensure that the trainee teachers possess two to four coaching or umpiring certificates before they graduate after four years in the institution. This measure will help to increase the pool of qualified coaches and umpires among teachers when they are posted to their respective schools.
“This would raise the standard of sports throughout Malaysia. We are also working in collaboration with the National Sports Council (MSNS) in organising coaching and umpiring courses in all the IPGs throughout Malaysia starting this year,” he added.
These efforts complement the Education Ministry’s `One Student, One Sport’ policy to get more students involved in sports.
According to Chin, IPGKTAR was one of the three IPGs that have been identified as sports institutes out of the 27 IPGs in the country.
The other two sports institutes are IPG Kampus Perlis and IPG Kampus Raja Melewar.
Chin said that Sava was very grateful to Chai Poh Fatt who was the head instructor, Sava referees Liew Guo Chen, Allan Chan, Chai Wee Ming and Chong Hon Min, and course coordinator Salmi Lilek for their high standard of professionalism in conducting the courses.
Chai also noted that the course would produce more trained umpires to officiate in Sava-organised matches. The addition of this new pool of umpires to the Sava’s existing panel augurs well for the future as the sport is getting busier through the year.
IPGKTAR deputy director Mohammad Lin also expressed his appreciation of Sava for the course.