PENAMPANG: The Youth and Sports Ministry hopes that every child will learn basic swimming skills, said its minister Hannah Yeoh.
"It will be excellent for all schools. Our hope is that every child is given that basic skill of how to swim; every child should have at least six lessons.
"But everything is costly, and access to the pool is hard for everyone. In certain districts, there is no swimming pool, how are you going to transport people out?
"This is something that we are now learning as we go along once we find out how we can overcome this," she told the media after launching a basic swimming class for senior citizens here this morning.
From 2018 to 2022, 1,106 people had drowned. In Sabah, there were 142 cases in the same period.
Yeoh said many swimming pools have closed due to high operation costs.
However, she said the recently announced RM1,000 tax incentive would spark growth in the sports industry to encourage more parents to sign up their children for swimming classes.
She added the ministry is now in midst of discussions with the states and local authorities to discuss rebuilding pools for the public.
"For those who can afford, they could have lessons at their condominium swimming pools. I do not want to have any class gap.
"For sports tournaments overseas, there are many that involve swimming events. If we are not strong in this, we will not get a lot of medals."
For the basic swimming lesson programme, Yeoh said the ministry is targeting 8,880 participants nationwide, including children from B40 household incomes, people with disabilities, and senior citizens.
Between April and June, 120 participants from Sabah who will be involved in the programme.
She hoped that the programme, which started last year, would become more popular and more people will sign up for it.
Yeoh also said the ministry would also rope in members of Parliament to assist in making the programme a success in their own respective constituencies.
