The efforts by the Education Ministry to introduce swimming as a co-curricular activity for school students should be taken positively, said its minister Dr Maszlee Malik.

He said the matter should not be pushed aside but must be seen as a progress in the school co-curricular programme in line with students’ holistic development.

"We are not only interested in producing outstanding students in the academic field, but we also want to have students with swimming and life-saving skills as well as aware of water safety.

"We want to be as advanced as the developed countries, like Singapore and other countries. In fact some private schools in Malaysia do include swimming as a co-curricular activity," he told reporters at the Parliament lobby.

Yesterday, Maszlee said the ministry would discuss with the hotel industry on the need to use their swimming pools for students to practice swimming as the ministry was planning to make swimming lessons mandatory in schools.

While applauding the ministry’s initiative, Malaysian Association of Hotels Association (MAH) chief executive officer Yap Lip Seng, reportedly said that the presence of students at the hotel swimming pools for swimming lessons would pose a negative impression on the tourism industry.

Meanwhile in Kuching, State Education, Science and Technological Research Minister Michael Manyin said the recommendation that private companies especially hotels, allow students to utilise their swimming pools would not be practical in Sarawak as most schools were in the rural areas.

"Not all schools are located in the urban areas.

“It is not practical to bring the students all the way to the city just for swimming lessons as it would be time consuming and costly,” he said adding most towns in the state do not have a swimming pool.

- Bernama