Source: Current MOE homepage

The fields are lushly verdant, lit with gold and teased with shadows; the air is fresh and  the mood expectant; over the wide open grasses four children run to embrace the future.   Behold, Singaporeans -- laughter on their lips and happiness in their eyes, they are the future of our nation. 

The problem with this picture? These are ten year olds, already dressed in the garb of four of the most elite schools in the nation, and together they form the face of Singaporean schools.   Nanyang Girls, Raffles Girls, ACS and SCGS: our hope and our joy.

Aside from that picture being profoundly amusing, it was also faintly unsettling.  Elitism has always been an uncomfortable issue for me, given that I am somewhat the product of an elitist system.  It has given me insight into just how comfortable and rewarding it can be to succeed within that system.  I was in the Gifted Education Programme throughout primary and secondary school.  I will be the first to testify that which comes as no surprise to many -- yes, we were given plenty of other privileges other kids weren't.

GEP students went to Tioman Island on a highly subsidized trip to explore our "Multiple Intelligences" (their attempt to stimulate our budding intellects and abilities via the Howard Gardner theory which expounds profusely on the many ways in which a person can be good at something).  Mainstream students twiddled their thumbs during the holidays, did CIP, and had to wait their turn for the considerably less subsidized trip to the UK which cost thousands of dollars and was open to GEP and mainstream students alike.  GEP students had their notes and worksheets printed and photocopied free of charge.  Mainstream students did a painful weekly coin collection to pay for theirs.  In primary school, GEP students were given a roomful of intellectual games like Rush Hour which we were given access to from time to time.  Mainstream students played hopskotch in the basketball court.

I was always aware of a disparity between us and them, and it ranged beyond that of budgetary allocations.  Our curriculum was also much more rigorous, engaging and varied than that of the mainstream students.  In Mathematics, we learned the numerals of ancient civilizations such as Rome and Egypt.  In English lessons, as early as in primary school, we learned ancient Greek and Roman myths.  These things did not require a vast intellect to comprehend.  It was simply that more effort was taken in compiling a comprehensive and engaging syllabus for us to draw upon, because it was assumed that we were smart enough to handle that, on top of everything else.  It was just so much more fun.

Such a system has its advantages, of course.  Many of my GEP classmates not only found an outlet for their intelligence, but also found solace in one another's company -- consistently scoring higher grades than your peers with what seems to be far less effort is a surefire way to ostracize yourself in school; that, and one must consider also that GEP students are frankly weird.  Given that I am weird, I enjoyed the company.  I have also had the privilege of associating with such brilliant people, I wouldn't exchange the experience for the world.

But I will also admit this: it is true that many youngsters from elite schools and systems like the GEP are spoiled, selfish, snobbish and socially isolated.  Many of them care for nothing but themselves.  Our teachers in primary school used to tell my class: you guys are the future leaders of our nation.  Oh, how we scoffed.  "That's just propaganda," we sneered at our Social Studies textbooks, having learned at the tender age of eleven the various tactics of propaganda such as 'bandwagon' or 'sleight of hand', etc.  Yes, these things really were in our curriculum! In the current junior college that I am in, which is affiliated to one of those schools featured in the screenshot, many of my peers are flippantly class-conscious, even if inadvertently so.  Years of not being exposed to people from Poly or even other JCs has entrenched a rift between them and us which becomes painfully obvious every time we are brought together in interaction.

I don't believe, however, that this is entirely our fault.  Singapore has embarked on a deliberate plan of social engineering, to create an upper class from which our future leaders can be groomed -- just as they told us repeatedly in school, whenever they felt we weren't doing justice to the taxpayers' money being spent on us, and usually we weren't.  For instance, look at some excerpts from this article from Reuters published only last week:

/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - With candidates' faces smiling from posters on lampposts, loudhailers on cars blasting slogans and politicians pressing the flesh, the campaign for Singapore's election on Saturday looks and feels like polls elsewhere.

But unlike other democracies, where politicians elbow their way to the top, Singapore's leaders climb orderly up a ladder in a lifelong selection process starting in primary school."

'That makes us different from other countries where there is a lot of personal interest and gain in wanting to achieve certain leadership positions,' he said."

Selection starts in primary school, where children are streamed into different levels according to academic performance.

The students that come out on top typically end up at the top pre-university "junior colleges".

"That is where most of the elite in the civil service is chosen from," said University of Queensland researcher Michael Barr, who is writing a book about Singapore's education system.

MERITOCRACY

Despite the system's meritocracy, top schools are filled with children of the Chinese middle class who can afford to pay the extra tuition, he said."

The problem, I think, comes from 'everyone understands his role'.  That means that I should understand my role as a less intelligent student, less deserving of air-conditioned classrooms and lounges, less likely to ever have a chance at succeeding at the top or serving my country as a politician.  Conversely, I should understand my role as a smarter, richer individual who can afford to cruise through life and land feet first into a cushy job.

That is a convenient way of aligning one's education policies, but not always an appropriate one.  Countries like Finland, which is ranked by international studies to have the best education system in the world, centre their policies around inclusion rather than elitism; widening participation across the board.  In contrast, Singapore runs its education system like, as I have observed countless times in other areas before, a business, in which one must be allocatively efficient: concentrate resources on those who show potential early on and have the highest likelihoods of becoming smart leaders.  The surplus can be divided up among the rest.

There are several problems with this approach.  Firstly, one excuse given for this practice is that smarter students need to be the guinea pigs for new experiments in education before other students can have access to the same, to minimize the chances of failure.  The problem is that many of these good, sound approaches to education are never translated down into being offered to other students, because we are so afraid to risk failure.  What if we lose time on algebra learning nonsense like fancy numerals? What if students fail their oral exams because they were learning about Hades and Persephone! Afraid to risk the efficient, learn-the-most-in-the-least-time approach we have crafted, many of the best parts to our GEP syllabus are stillborn, right there: only in GEP.  I remember when I was a child, five, six years old, studying in Canada.  We learned as early as then, what was a brontosaurus, and a tyrannosaurus rex.  We learned all sorts of things, did all sorts of activities which had nothing to do with xi zi (mindlessly copying out words) or number models.  Education was fun, the students were outspoken, and everybody benefitted.  Daring to try out a more enriched perspective in education has led to other countries seeing more daring, entrepreneurial, outspoken individuals, while Singaporeans have often been criticized, even by its own ministers, as lacking initiative and entrepreneurial spirit, being passive receptors rather than agents of change.

Secondly, it is all too easy to paper over the problems in our system by extolling the achievements of our better schools.  Our teacher told us something in secondary school that has stayed with me since.  I can still hear us telling us, as we listened in hushed and somewhat ashamed silence, of teenagers from a different world.  Teenagers who gave up on themselves before they even tried.  Teenagers who were dropping out of school so they could work instead to support their families.  Teenagers with younger siblings to look after, now that their parents were in jail.  Teenagers who simply could not cope with the demanding syllabus and yet, when streamed accordingly, caved into the stigma of being in a lower class than everyone else, and started to believe that they were useless.  Those teenagers were so alien.  But they were our counterparts in schools down the streets where we lived.  Our teacher had taught in one of those schools before coming to teach in the Dunman High GEP programme.  She told us: you don't know how lucky you are.  And she was right.  Steamrolling one class of students ahead paves the way to leaving the rest behind.  Efforts made to reform the system appear tokenistic because the mindset has not changed.  If you want to be in the Integrated Programme and have a richer, more colourful syllabus, you need to achieve a certain grade, have a good track record.  If you want to have a government scholarship, you need to achieve 4 A's and 3 'S' Paper distinctions, there is no other way.  If you want to be on MOE's poster, you have to be from NYGH, RGS, ACS or SCGS ;)

Thirdly, being in the top class of students does not mean that you are the most qualified or deserving to be there.  Take it from me, who has been classmates with some of the most selfish, silly people I have ever known -- they will be the first to gladly admit it.  When given more opportunities so early on, their inclination is to take them for granted, leading to stagnation.  GEP students are lazy.  I dare anyone who has ever been a GEP student to say I am wrong in that generalization.  Of course there are exceptions, but it's always interesting to note that the hardworking ones come from the supplementary intake; those who come in at P6 rather than P4.   They take less things for granted because they've had to work harder to get there.  But after awhile, too, many succumb to the crowd mentality of ill discipline and slackness.   Guilty? Nah, not me......

Lastly, because this has been an inordinately long and tedious post, I must point out that separation and stratification is immensely unhealthy so early on in life, as it sets the tone for one's entire adult life.  The mutual disdain between JC and Poly kids is quite frightening.  Poly kids will go "wah lao, these JC students think they know everything", and JC kids will always say "I'm such a failure, I'm gonna join Poly".  There is perceptible animosity and resentment on both camps, and honestly, it's just silly.  If we had a more egalitarian system where the benefits and efforts of policymaking are better spread out across the board we would have far less problems in this regard.  Else, I fear the creation of a society where everyone 'understands his role', and misunderstands another's.  Mistrust, disdain, and stereotypes I can do without, thank you very much.