I haven’t been blogging politically-correct stuff. And on this eve of anniversary for our nation’s separation from Malaysia (Independance, in other words), I guess I should make some kind of exception. Or should I not? I think I should defend it at least a little. You know, Singapore is really a great place, I apologize for keeping up the top blogging habit – ranting. Singapore’s celebrating its 40th and it is a great time to slack off for a while before getting back to tests and exams (I’ve got an exam on this Friday).
Well, my desktop goes into its fourth year within this few days, and it is getting cranky by day. I just got it a new motherboard battery a few months back (I think it was March) and now its clock is not keeping up again. Then there is the dumb, faulty CD-rewriter drive that is giving me a whole lot of headache by dettaching it from the computer source as it please. To aid imagination of my problems, here’s the scenario: I wanna burn a disc, so I started Nero and such. I slipped in the CD, no problems so far. In fact, even after I clicked the ‘Burn’ button, and heard some zipping noises from the drive (which I usually do when it is burning a CD), there was no alert or whatsoever about a possible error that may occur. In any case, after the burn, an alert popped out, the whole computer hanged for a second or two, then zrrrr…. the drive goes dead – my disc still in it.
Meanwhile, the computer is still working fine, with the exception that you can no longer see the ‘CD Drive’ under the ‘My Computer’. That’s sad. And to get the drive back to its feet, I gotta restart the computer (which also means I have to reset my BIOS clock somehow, because of the weird-ness of my desktop). I have to get a new desktop, preferably one that comes with a SATA compatiable motherboard, and a 80GB ATA HDD, with at least Intel Pentium4 2.6GHz (my current one is a P4 1.8GHz one and it sux big time). But none of these until I finish mugging and backed up all my past years data. Over these years, I acculmulated at least 25 GB of nonsense and all these got to be squeezed into the ‘unburnable CDs’ I have bought. Now, how am I going to transfer all these file away…
I am not writing any more stuff on Social Mobility. They are a little too morbid. Perhaps that’s too strong a term. I’ll say that these posts appear terrible on a blog that belong to a person like Vib. I have decided to write a research paper on it instead. And I need all you guy’s help. Mib can provide me with the information on USA’s meritocracy, Terry can give me an overview of how scholars are selected in Malaysia and also information on their form of selective meritocracy. Leonard can provide any insightful perspective of the ‘other’ side of GEP and Mainstream Education. When I mean the ‘other side’, I mean the non media intervention kind.
As a biased person, I will need some really neutral views. And Bok can help me with that. He can give me an idea of how the system really works, in his perception and how the ‘rich’ stands to gain (or not). Even Jin, if you are reading, might like to tell me all you know about meritocracy in Singapore and how the societal trends are changing your perception of education and its role. If you think this is too chim, or you need me to translate to Singlish, I can do that in the comments box, perhaps when you ask. I am proficient in Chinese or Mandarin too, no problem if you need it in Chinese.
See, so many people can help. Not forgetting Wilson, who is, to a large extent, a powerful critic with too much of caustic-ity in his comments or rather criticism. But that’s good, Singapore needs this kind of people – the only bad part is that he don’t say it out loud to the people involved in the ‘big thing’. And also Jeremy, you can give me tonnes of your chimly worded insights. But make sure you go read up on Social Mobility first. I wonder if I have enough ‘experts’ on this field, considering the fact that I am being biased by getting only my friends. There are still many people out there waiting to say something about this. I hope to interview other people, from the recently changed name school called Hwa Chong Institute or something, and also the famous Raffles Institution. All these very cool school students can give good comments.
Everyone, shall contribute, and I shall be writing it. I have set the starting time of the research to be the end of my ‘O’ Levels. And I hope I can present it as a component of my research on Society when I get into Sociology or some related studies. Of course, people say there’s still National Service and all the nonsense. It doesn’t matter. Our country do have some resistance to change. That’s good, because that’s what makes old research papers valid till today, even if it is from a ‘historical perspective’.
I must first thank Leonard for his valuable compliment. I am not sure, but his compliment seem to reflect that he agrees with my point of view though I can never confirm. In any case, it is important that he agrees with me. Leonard, being one of the students enjoying (or should I say sufferings?) the merits of the Gifted Education, and also one who have experience the mainstream education almost in its entirety, would be the best judge as to how the two programmes differ. When I say differ, I don’t mean content, I am referring to the opportunities they offer, the assumptions they make (Stuff like ‘all geppers must be from rich families’).
I probably be talking about the GEP issue some other time because I don’t have the information on this programme and personally, I have set out to write something about breaking bonds. It is inevitable to raise the issue of bond breaking when it comes to discussing scholarships. Previously, I also mentioned briefly about how rich people, may decide to break bonds anyway, after their studies. I would say, to have bond breaking becoming ‘common’ in a sense, is a breakthrough for Singaporeans. It is, I believe not a question or loyalty, but promise. Those bond breakers breach their contracts, fine with that, since their are willing to give the compensation. In the eyes of law, there is balance, because both parties agreed on the terms initially. Of course, it is never desired for any form of contract to be broken for most parties, since both sides are stakeholders in a way or two.
Why do I say that this is a breakthrough? It simply shows that our ‘local talents’ are now being valued. At times, if not usually, adhering to the bond would bring down their value. For bond breakers who alliance with MNCs to free themselves, they have gained some form of recognition that makes them worth the price stated for compensation. Their value increase with the breaking of the bond. Many employers prefer freshmen not because of their cost of hire, but the very fact that they do not have any pre-perceptions of the industry that will misled their decision or affect their view of certain actions of the company. Most importantly, they have the passion than a graduate who have undergone ‘training’ at a statutory board for, say, 3 – 5 years. It is important that these organisations tied to the scholarship holders through the bonds do not extinguish this passion, which they usually do.
But how? How do I know that their passion is gone? And is passion that important, you see, work is still work? Well, some may think so, they probably value the money, for ‘work is only a means to end and not the end’, to use a distorted clause from the existentialist. Jim Collins mentioned in Good to Great that if your company is only going to think about growth, money making, profitting from whatever you are working on, you can only become good, if not bad – you never become great. And ultimately, you don’t spin as much money as those great companies do. Passion, according to him, is essential and it is not a individual concept, it must involve almost all in the executive and management. This is why he devoted almost a chapter to explain why every organisation should look into where they can have fun before plunging into the market.
Passion is gone? Or is it not? I am not sure, having made the claim above. But how many scholarship holder manage to climb into MNCs and succeed in the global economy? Oh well, that’s unfair to debate on because most scholarship fund studies in law, medical, or perhaps sociology, less with economics. Even with economics, that guy out of ten probably decides not to enter the financial sector. So the arguement stops there, you got to probe further yourself.
I am not propagating the idea that we should break whatever bond, regardless or the nature, the compensation required. Let’s be pragmatic, these bond conditions and stuff are used to restrict the ‘poor’ scholars, with an additional quality – he would not be able to win over the big corporations to sponser any compensation for him. Then you think again, you such a person be getting the scholarship in the first place? Probably not. I think this sudden influx of scholarship ‘new criteria’: Charisma, Outstanding in presentation or style, and most importantly, I have raise this very disappointing point – they do look for looks, is the source of all these problems. We can never be objective about looks unless we conduct the interview with a cloth or something between the interviewers and interviewees. We have to clear up all these mess created by the lame criteria, because it appears that all these qualities they are looking for simply makes up celebrities. Then we’ll have celebrity doctors, celebrity economists, celebrity sociologists. Think about it, that’s not too bad – the telephone companies can hold a ‘Professional Idol’ to dig more money from naive teens, who are now enjoy the greatest perk of technology – the handphone.
And that’s the whole point of group interviews! They select relatively, never considering certain unique characteristic of anyone in the room that they might be able to tap on. Don’t be mistaken, this are all opinions, for I have never once stepped into a scholarship interview of any form, or even watched a video on group interviewing. I don’t know the techniques, the information involved, and the insiders stuff. What I know, is a combination of the obvious fact, and psychology. Think, how many times have you judged a person without considering his looks? That’s virtually a human impossibility. Face it, we are never objective. And being subjective is good, for that is what made me write all these.
Once again, I am unable to finish what I want to say, I probably continue some time later. In any case, readers might find this post bothersome to read because the thoughts are hardly crystalised and I seem to be spewing random points, jumping from here to there, without a read central theme.
Surprisingly, I have been reading news. Yes, and I came across Soon Sze Meng’s article on our local school’s contribution towards social mobility. As a typical student myself, I shall leave readers to find out for themselves what exactly is social mobility. In any case, the article revolves around the discussion of meritocracy in Singapore and who exactly does our education system benefit.
For ages, we, belonging to the lower band of the society, lived with the idea that education is our key to penetrating the social ‘classes’, allowing us to attain ‘greater heights’. We believe, that wealth do not last more than 3 generations, with the second (in some cases) and third squandering away all the first generation have worked to build. We once thoughts, that as long as we slog and work, we will outshine the ‘rich’ students, who are characterised by their lazy, and apathetic traits. Unfortunately (or should I say fortunately), our society is not so ideal, and so is many others.
A nation founded upon the principles of meritocracy is successful because everyone starts off at the same point, the identical starting line. Whoever runs fast enough, have the perseverence to last till the end, emerges as the victor, and not forgetting those who have accompanied the victor all the way, whom themselves earn the rest of the honour. Others are left scattered around the track – some gave up halfway, some sink into some kind of crisis purely by chance, while others who may have tried the shortcuts got lost. For this point, I am also suggesting that people do win with shortcuts.
That was then. The second generation don’t differ much from the first except that they had a more stable life, and were able to enjoy what the previous generation know as luxury. They are able to enjoy in their late 50s or so. But as we step into the third generation, the disparity is getting wider. We see that everyone has a different starting point; you have a guy from a tycoon’s family, another is the son of an official (this kind of people are known as white horse in Singapore context), and who knows, you get a peer who has just migrated to Singapore from Australia and he’s an excellent speaker. You get different competitors, and so on the other hand, there are the sons and daughters of hawkers – the mini rich class; finally, there is the lower income group, supposedly characterised by the fact that they qualify for financial aid. I have to stress this point that there is no discrimination intended.
What I am trying to say here is that you now need to introduce ‘Selective Meritocracy’. This has been in practice and this is not something new at all. It involves the addition of filters to prevent ‘well-fed’ people who has the ability to fund their own studies from obtaining scholarships or monetary rewards for academic achievements, thereby robbing the deserving, and in a way, less fortunate of the opportunity to ‘move up’ (to quote from Sze Meng’s words). Paradoxically, this system of selective meritocracy is only used in scholarships or cash grants involving money that usually does not exceed SGD$1000. The scholarships that goes up to hundreds of thousands do not work with this system.
The vicious cycle is turning, in fact spining. The rich get the appropriate help, the right contacts, and the resources required to do whatever known as ‘projects’. The poor, with less exposure to the academics, and having a need for extra income, would rather address to the immediate problem by working part-time, than to work on his ‘project’. The system, acknowledges the efforts of the rich boy, praising his efforts to contact a renown professor to aid in his ‘project’ while dismissing the poor student as a rebellious, undisciplined and ‘good-for-nothing’. This is getting fearful. Well, the situation is not as extreme as the analogy I have drawn, but the actual is very close. Extremely close indeed.
There are, in fact, presence of students who have excel academically and present himself as being an outstanding and ‘high-class’ student despite his humble background and manages to obtain the scholarship that they are pursuing at the end of their ‘learning journey’. But they are rare. Let’s put this fact aside and imagine, for Einstein has mentioned how imagination is more important than knowledge: If the ‘rich’ guys who have obtained scholarships are erased from the big picture completely, how many ‘poor’ others would have been able to ‘move up’? And in turn, they would be able to aid how many others ‘move up’? This would eventually close up the income gap that we seem to have now.
Think about how the small gap between obtaining the scholarship and not for both the rich and the poor would alter from cases to cases. A ‘rich’ who grasped it feels happy, go on the study, come back to adhere to his bond (alternatively, he might decide to break the bond and even compensate with his own money if he is really rich enough), and then live on. The ‘poor’ who missed it would have spent his slogging on his studies seemingly useless. Well, he can continue with his academic career and alter his future a little, but will never be able to make the difference that he would have if he manages to obtain the chance to pursue what he initially wanted.
This is getting long and I probably would continue with this talk in the next few posts.
