Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asian Schools

IASAS Emblem

The Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asian Schools (IASAS) is an association of six schools in and around Southeast Asia. The member schools are International School Bangkok (Thailand), International School of Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), International School Manila (Philippines), Jakarta Intercultural School (Indonesia), Singapore American School (Singapore), and Taipei American School (Taiwan).[1]

High level competitions and events involving teams or groups from the IASAS schools are held throughout the school year in areas of sports, speaking, or cultural events. Sports competitions are organized into three separate seasons, and tournaments are held at the end of an approximately 10-week season. Each of the IASAS schools rotate the hosting of events, based on available facilities. While participating in events, students are expected to adhere to a strict code of conduct. Students traveling to other schools to participate in IASAS events stay with families from the host school. The events, organized by season, are listed below.

Sports

First season IASAS, held in October, includes soccer, volleyball, and cross country running. Second season IASAS, held in January includes basketball, rugby union (for men), touch rugby (for women), swimming, and tennis. Third season events, held in April, are badminton, softball, golf, and track and field. In addition to the culminating IASAS events that occur at the end of each season, athletics exchanges are held during the season so that teams have an opportunity to see the competition. These exchanges usually only involve two or three of the IASAS schools at a time, and no awards are given for winning an exchange.

Non-competitive events

Leadership Convention has been canceled starting from the 2008-2009 academic year due to the effort to reduce the unnecessary travel for non-competitive events. A conference for student peer-helper groups took place in September 2005, 2006 and 2007, but has since been discontinued. Model United Nations is held in November, usually with additional schools participating.

Cultural convention

Cultural Convention is held in March and includes three separate components: "Art and Music", "Dance, Drama" and "Debate and Forensics". The music delegation includes choir, strings, band and pianists. Forensics events include Original Oratory, Oral Interpretation, Extemporaneous Speaking, and Impromptu. Though the three components of Cultural Convention take place concurrently, they are typically hosted in different locations.

Other events

A History of IASAS

A HISTORY of IASAS
by Harold Albert (ISB)

The seeds of the Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asia School (IASAS) organization were planted long ago with sports exchanges that were arranged between many of the schools. For example Singapore American School (SAS) and International School Bangkok (ISB) participated in an annual multi-sport event called the Singapore-Bangkok Games that started in 1961. In 1980, the International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL) asked to participate in this event, creating what then became known as the Triangular Games. It was around this time that the idea of forming an athletic conference began to develop.

It was at a conference in Hong Kong in 1980 that the idea of IASAS really started. A number of interested individuals began tossing around some ideas of creating a larger, formally organized entity. Primarily spearheaded by the School Heads from ISKL, SAS and Jakarta Intercultural School (JIS), there was expressed a desire to begin an international athletics conference. It wasn’t long after that the Athletic Directors from schools in the region met at Singapore American School. The result, as we all know, was IASAS, which formally started in the fall of 1982. Along with International School Manila (ISM), the initial conference was made up of five schools: JIS, SAS, ISKL, ISB and ISM. Taipei American School (TAS) joined the group in 1986, creating the six-school conference that has flourished ever since. Originally the idea was limited to athletics, but at the urging of an art teacher from SAS, a cultural component was also instituted that very first school year.

In the early days the conventions included soccer & volleyball (first season), basketball & swimming (second season), softball & track and field (third season), as well as a cultural convention (dance, drama, debate, forensics, music and art) and even a mathematics competition. Over the years various activities were added to the agenda, and today the wide-ranging IASAS activities include:

   1st Season: Cross-Country, Soccer, Volleyball
   2nd Season: Basketball, Rugby/Touch, Swimming, Tennis
   3rd Season: Badminton, Softball, Track & Field, Golf
   Cultural Convention: Art/Drama/Dance, Forensics and Debate and Music
   Model United Nations
   IASAS Math

For everyone involved, students, coaches, administrators, parents and community members, IASAS is one of the most memorable times of any school year. Each year, as we continue to enjoy each component of our organization, we can only thank those who came before and helped to create such a remarkable organization, and we hope that IASAS will prosper for many decades to come.

Harold Albert
Assistant Athletic Director
International School Bangkok

References

  1. ↑ IASAS official website