The Higher Education Ministry is confident of meeting its target of producing at least 30 per cent of the nation's athletes by 2015.
The ministry sports division's secretary Dr Saharudin Ismail said the
number of university athletes that represented Malaysia at the recent
London Olympics and 2011 Indonesia Sea Games was proof that the
programme was on track towards achieving its goal.
"At the Olympics, 11 of the 30 athletes who competed were university
students (35 per cent) while the Sea Games saw 23 per cent of the
contingent being made up of university athletes, which is an achievement
we are happy with," said Dr Saharudin.
"With such numbers being produced now, I believe consistently hitting
the 30 per cent target will be a much more realistic feat in 2015 with
the development programmes we have in place now."
Dr Saharudin added the upcoming inaugural Malaysian Institutions of
Higher Learning Games (SUKIPT), part of the ministry's efforts to churn
out more national athletes, will be offering full scholarships to gold
medal winners in a move to inspire athletes to take up sports more
seriously.
"Full time students, with the exception of final year and short course
students, will be offered a full scholarship. However, they must
maintain a certain level of performance in both sports as well as
academics throughout their studies," added Dr Saharudin, who is also the
SUKIPT chief executive officer.
"For those not eligible for the full scholarship and also silver and
bronze winners, we will provide them with other forms of incentives as
we do not want to leave them out."
SUKIPT, which starts tomorrow and will end on Nov 11, will see more
than 10,000 athletes from 101 higher education institutions competing
for honours in 15 different sports.
