WHAT CAN FOSTER MORE OPEN MERITOCRACY?
Meritocracy has been one of the pillars of Singapore’s governing philosophy for decades, and even as he acknowledged its downsides, Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said last year that it is “still the best way to organise our society”.
“Because it encourages people to strive to make the best use of the opportunities available to them, and it preserves upward mobility,” he said.
“We cannot abandon meritocracy, but I believe we can improve it and make ours a more open and compassionate meritocracy.”
One of the ways the government is changing academic sorting is by rolling out full subject-based banding at secondary schools from next year. This year, more than two-thirds of secondary schools will have implemented it fully.
Full subject-based banding means streaming will be removed. Students can choose to take different subject levels, known as G3, G2 and G1 (G stands for general), which are broadly mapped from today’s Express, Normal (Academic) and Normal (Technical) standards respectively.
Full subject-based banding means students will have greater flexibility in studying more subjects at levels that suit their interests and aptitude, according to the Ministry of Education (MOE).
In mixed form classes, they can also interact with peers with different strengths and interests, the ministry said on its website.
That is an improvement on the “one-size-fits-all” format, said radio deejay Joakim Gomez.
When he was at school, he was good at accounting and would have welcomed studying it in the best subject band, he mused.
“When it comes to mathematics or maybe even science, I can go to the weaker subject-based banding classes, (where) I might meet someone who’s really good in English or really good in (their) mother tongue,” he imagined.
Policymakers could also think of fostering more diversity in a segment of schools called Special Assistance Plan (SAP) schools, observers suggested.
As students must take Higher Chinese or Chinese to be posted to SAP schools, the institutions are “racially homogeneous”, with “very few who are non-Chinese who are in the school”, noted SIT’s Intan.
The schools can be “a lot more inclusive”, and one way is to allow students who do not take Chinese as their mother tongue to enrol, she proposed.
“There are all these sorts of little nuances in our meritocratic system that should be reviewed from time to time (to) see whether there are ways … to make them more inclusive,” added IPS’ Koh.
In a 2021 parliamentary reply, the MOE said SAP schools, which were established in 1979 at a time of declining enrolment in Chinese-medium schools, have various programmes to forge bonds with other communities.
“(SAP schools) continue to be relevant as part of Singapore’s approach for every community to preserve and practise their cultures, religion and languages, while safeguarding the common space to develop a distinctive Singaporean identity,” the ministry said.
Other observers felt the need for a broader definition of merit and for alternative platforms besides school for youths to build social networks.
“We seem to value only one kind of intelligence, which is IQ. And we completely ignore emotional intelligence,” said Crystal Lim-Lange, chief executive of future-readiness consultancy Forest Wolf. Other forms of intelligence and contributions should also be validated, she said.
Schools are places of teaching, and that should be the focus of parents, reckoned Tjin Lee, co-founder of the Life Beyond Grades movement. “There’s been some confusion between education and social networking, and (about) elitism in that sense,” she said.
“Perhaps we should better look at what alternatives there are for us to better build our network, without fixating on schools being the only way to get (our) children into (one).”
For Gomez, there is a simple way to gauge any progress on this front.
He sometimes gets “anonymous confessions” on Instagram from stressed students and can relate to how they feel when they are not performing well.
“I just tell them … (their) grades aren’t the be-all and end-all here in Singapore,” said the theatre diploma holder. “And I hope one day when I say this phrase, nobody will scoff at me.”
Watch Part 1 of Measuring Meritocracy here. Look out for our story on meritocracy at work next week.