Reality TV is hitting schools in a big way as students and teachers rush to come up with their own versions of competitions to discover talent among the student population.

A few years ago, my secondary school - Ang Mo Kio Secondary - decided it would start a talent competition.

A good idea, you might say, but the name of the competition raised more than a few eyebrows.

"AMK's Got Talent? You serious ah?"

It sounded as if it would be a spoof of the popular show America's Got Talent, which is considered by many viewers to be the less-popular (and less-talented) sibling of American Idol.

Of course, it was no spoof. It was very serious business among the teachers and participants.

The same was true for other schools, which I discovered also held talent searches.

Punggol Secondary, for example, holds its very own Punggol Superstar every year.

Every year, since 2005, students at Bukit Batok Secondary have been vying for the title of Batok Idol - not to be confused with the more controversial Botak Idol, held informally in classrooms when the teachers (aka judges) were not looking.

But my favourite is Holy Innocents' High School's very own H. I. School Musical, a witty homage to Disney's irresistible High School Musical that has taken teen culture by storm.

I guess all the talk about Singapore as the hub of all hubs has motivated local schools to add one more notch to the list of the island nation's achievements - K-Box Hub.

On a serious note, though, such intra-school competitions do provide a platform for students who want the best of both worlds: They want to sing to an audience, but don't want to be embarrassed on national TV.

It's a great springboard for local talent to plunge into the music scene, and for home-grown bands to build on their potential.

But I wonder, shouldn't these students be focusing on studying instead?

Imagine a teen who has killer vocals, but can't even solve a quadratic equation!

Perhaps the real talent lies in being able to pursue and further those natural-born gifts, while doing well at schoolwork at the same time.

Also, at the end of the day, I guess a little fun never could hurt anybody.

And if such distractions help to relieve the stress of studying and help students do better academically, then why not let them indulge a little?

This article was first published in The Straits Times (IN) on Apr 7, 2008.