The National Water Safety Council has developed a new water safety programme, SwimSafer, which will be rolled out at public swimming pools from July 2010 onwards, to teach water survival skills and increase water safety.

Knowing just to swim is not enough. Swimmers, especially children, need to know about water safety and what they should do when they run into difficulty in the water. Thus, this new programme, SwimSafer, aims to teach water survival skills and drowning prevention techniques, on top of swimming skills.

As the SwimSafer is designated as the replacement programme for the current Learn-to-swim-programme (LTSP) and NASSA, both the latter programmes would be discontinued with effect from 5th July 2010.

The SwimSafer curriculum has six stages which prepare students to react appropriately when in sudden and adverse situations. These will be taught and tested in a swimming pool setting. The Singapore Sports Council (SSC) will train all instructors at SSC's 24 swimming complexes to get them certified in time for the programme in July.

All SwimSafer certified instructors will be provided with a SwimSafer Instructor Card which they will have to produce upon entering the SSC's swimming complexes, as well as showing upon request from a parent. In addition, they will be identifiable on the pool deck by the SwimSafer branded hat that they will wear when conducting classes.

With the SwimSafer course in place, swimmers will also get more attention from instructors as the maximum number of students allowed per lesson is reduced from 12 to 10 students.

Back to top