Forum Letter Replies
Equal Chances for All
Mr Muhammad Faruoq Osman (“Elitist danger in Singapore education”, 21 August 2008) is wrong that only the elite minority from wealthier households is more likely to “receive value-added education at the expense of vast amounts of public funds” in our education system.
MOE provides adequate resources to all our schools and institutions of higher learning to enable every Singaporean child to achieve his full potential. For each level, we spend what is needed to achieve a high quality education for all. For example, we spend annually about $11,300 for each student in junior college and about $10,300 for each student in ITE. All students can develop themselves in music, sports or the arts through school-based co-curricular programmes.
Students regardless of their family background have done well in this system. The top 5% of students in the 2007 Primary School Leaving Examination did not come only from a few schools with rich parents. In fact, they came from 98% of our primary schools’from all socio-economic groups.
Mr Osman noted that about half of PSC scholarship recipients lived in private property. But to conclude from this narrow and single observation that our education system is therefore less meritocratic is neither sensible nor fair. It is true that in all societies, successful parents tend to produce successful children and Singapore is not unique here. However, thousands of students who graduate from ITE, Polytechnics and our Universities every year do not feel less of themselves or of their achievements because they have not received a PSC scholarship. All of them have succeeded by their own efforts and no eligible student is deprived from entering our top schools, institutions or gifted programmes just because his family is poor. Admission is strictly based on merit and we have a wide range of bursaries and financial assistance schemes to assist students in need.
Our education system should motivate and provide opportunities for all students to go as far as each can. We have targeted programs to assist those from poorer families and many are moving up. One of every 8 undergraduates in our public Universities come from households who live in 1- to 3-room flats. We should celebrate when any student excels, regardless of his background. When that student comes from a lower income household, we applaud his efforts because he has succeeded despite difficult circumstances. But we should not cavil or be envious when students from higher income households do well in our education system. Both have earned rewards based on personal effort and merit. And we hope that both will feel a duty to contribute back to this society to maintain our system that provides opportunities for all.
Director (Corporate Communications)
“Elitist danger in S’pore education” (Muhammad Farouq Osman, ST Forum, 21/8, pA27)
I read with interest Mr Zakir Hussain‘s article last Friday, ‘Meritocracy’s hidden danger’ which gives a revealing insight into Singapore’s brand of meritocracy. The article states that about 53 per cent of Public Service Commission scholarships go to those who live in private property.
While there is general acquiescence that these scholarships are indeed awarded on the basis of academic performance and individual achievement alone, the preponderance of the socially privileged among them merits scrutiny.
These students largely hail from the crème de la crème of schools and have benefited from the various schemes that cater to the academically talented, such as the Education Ministry’s Gifted Education Programme.
Their dominant social status arising from higher household incomes suggests that they possess the cultural capital required to ‘make it’ in life, as nurtured by their parents who are likely to have attained qualifications at the tertiary level. In their scholastic journey, this group of students are likely to be enrolled in the Integrated Programme where, since 2004, they have been allowed to bypass the O-level examinations, in favour of taking the A Levels at the end of a six-year course.
This is a manifestation of greater elitism being built into the education system, where the same elite minority continue to receive value-added education throughout their schooling years at the expense of vast amounts of public funds.
As a result, Singapore’s education system, which has always been held up as a model of social mobility for all, is attenuated because one group benefits from a distinct advantage over the others. The public perception that there is an inherent link between students from wealthier households and high academic achievement is pervasive.
Over the years, there have also been concerns about the attitudes of these students who are among the best and brightest and who are likely to secure positions of pre-eminence in society in the future. The raison d’être for this stems from the fact that there have been several scholars who are known to have broken their government bonds in favour of more lucrative job offers, which smacks of individualistic competition and selfishness, among other factors.
There is the danger of a dichotomy developing in an increasingly stratified Singapore society, exacerbated by widening income gaps where the mentality of ‘us versus them’ prevails.
By then, the people’s faith in our so-called meritocratic system would have shattered.