Meritocracy, elitism and primary one registration

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Phase 2B is just as impractical and unmeritocratic – reserved exclusively for parents who volunteered in the school, and those “endorsed” as “community leaders” or as members of a church or clan.

Parents who volunteer in the school tend to do so largely for this purpose alone – preferred entry for their children. This really takes the wind out of the sails of the spirit of volunteerism. Likewise for “endorsed” community leaders, which roughly translates to ‘People’s Association grassroots volunteer with a letter from my MP’.

Some do volunteer out of a generous heart, but this is seldom the norm.

The affront to meritocracy is that it is most often well-to-do, single-income families who have the time to get involved with such activities. Worst of all is that “volunteerism” of this sort is disgustingly transactional, except that the currency is even more precious – time.

It seems that the people who “benefited disproportionately from society’s investment” are enabled by the system to deprive others of equal opportunity, and that they do under the guise of “giving back to society” – “volunteerism” and alumni fees that tilt the field in favour of the well-off.

It is time that more weight be placed on practical considerations, like proximity to the school, in order to convince Singaporeans that “all schools are good schools”.

- http://www.breakfastnetwork.sg/?p=6572


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