SINGAPORE – As a promising football player at Anglo-Chinese School (Independent), Samuel Poh was urged by his coach to play at a higher level by joining Hougang United when he was 15.
Though he eventually went on to captain the club’s under-17 team, Poh, now 19, said that the lessons he learnt during his two years at the football club went beyond the sport. They also came from interacting with teammates from diverse backgrounds.
Some of them came from less privileged or more troubled family backgrounds, while others struggled academically or fell in with the wrong social circles.
“Before that, I hadn’t been exposed to people from such diverse backgrounds… This really opened my eyes to how many of them have different challenges. Yet, we had a similar objective to achieve: working together to win games,” he said.
What followed was a realisation of the importance of understanding each person as an individual and recognising that, despite their challenges, people are a nation’s greatest asset.
During his six years at ACS (I), he had also engaged the disadvantaged in other ways. These included giving weekly mathematics tuition to primary schoolchildren and running monthly programmes for children with familial issues at Lakeside Family Services – a community charity in Clementi.
Poh is one of two recipients of the 2026 President’s Scholarship, the most prestigious of all undergraduate awards given out by the Public Service Commission.
The other recipient is Charlene Tan, 20, the first female Singapore Police Force (SPF) scholarship holder to receive the award.
It is given to those who are committed to serving the public, have good character, and are dedicated to making life better for Singaporeans.
Presenting the award to the recipients at the Istana on Aug 14, President Tharman Shanmugaratnam said that while the public service has been and remains one of Singapore’s defining strengths, demands on it will keep evolving and be more complex in the years to come.
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