This was an essay/assignment where the topic was on any population-related issue in Singapore.

Introduction

Your life story symbolises the sort of society that we aspire to be, and reminds us that the Singapore Story is one of hope and opportunity. In Singapore, no matter where we begin in life, if we work hard, we will have ample chances to do well; and when we make good, we have a responsibility in turn to help others around us.

PM Lee Hsien Loong (2017) at President Halimah Yacob’s swearing-in ceremony.

During President Halimah Yacob’s swearing-in ceremony, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s speech focused on President Halimah’s story of triumph over her initial difficulties in life (Lee, 2017). In the above excerpt, by saying “if we work hard, we will have ample chances to do well”, PM Lee alluded strongly to one of Singapore’s core tenets - meritocracy. In an essay titled ‘Good Meritocracy, Bad Meritocracy’, Donald Low describes meritocracy as being “as close as anything gets to being a national ideology” (Low, 2013). Being a born and bred Singapore, I recall ‘meritocracy’ being invoked repeatedly during Civics and Moral Education and Social Studies classes throughout primary and secondary school. As ESM Goh Chok Tong defined during a speech at Raffles Institution, “meritocracy is a value system by which advancement in society is based on an individual’s ability, performance and achievement, and not on the basis of connections, wealth or family background” (Goh, 2013). In other words, everyone is given an equal opportunity to succeed, assessed based primarily on merit and regardless of race, religion or class. Singapore is itself a shining example of the rewards of meritocracy - an exemplary rags-to-riches story, “From Third World to First”, to quote MM Lee Kuan Yew’s memoir (Lee, 2000).

At the same time, Singapore has been considered one of the most unequal countries, especially when ranked amongst other developed nations (Central Intelligence Agency, 2018). In the recent Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index 2018 released by Oxfam, Singapore is also ranked a miserable 149 out of 157 countries, based on governmental commitment to reduce inequality (Oxfam, 2018).

How might we reconcile the fairness of meritocracy and the observed inequality? In this essay, I consider Singapore’s applied meritocracy as one of the main driving forces of inequality and social stratification in the Singapore population.

Different Starting Lines

In response to a Parliamentary motion, Education Minister Ong Ye Kung described how affluent parents “spare no effort investing in the abilities of their children, even from a very young age, as they believe in meritocracy” (Ong, 2018). By “spare no effort”, Ong refers to the numerous tuition and enrichment classes that many children attend, as well as other strategies employed by parents to help their children get a head start, such as volunteering at prestigious primary schools and even moving homes early to take advantage of home-school distance perks. The extent of effort is observed clearly when, in light of the Ministry of Education’s announcement that the number of examinations would be reduced in primary and secondary schools (Ministry of Education, 2018), parents respond by focusing even more on tuition classes to track how well their children are doing (Chua, 2018). But can all parents afford such efforts?

In her wonderful ethnographic study on inequality and poverty titled ‘This is What Inequality Looks Like’, Teo You Yenn describes her experiences as a parent enrolling her six-year-old daughter into primary school and “[gaining] entry into a world of intensive parenting” — joining a WhatsApp chat group with other parents, engaging with teachers on subjects that children were weak at and worrying over the first spelling test with the words “caterpillar” and “butterfly” (Teo, 2018: 99-124). These experiences are juxtaposed against that of Suyati, a mother living in a rental flat, who is working as a cleaner at condominiums and also has a six-year-old daughter. Not to mention engaging with teachers, Suyati is even unsure of how to enrol her daughter in primary school. A few months into Primary One, Suyati’s daughter “had been identified as a weak student who should attend extra coaching each morning before school”, while Teo’s daughter had begun on the Harry Potter series. Specifically, Teo describes some parents as “active campaigners on behalf of their children” and that “this type of campaigning is not class-neutral”:

[…] it comes more easily to people who have themselves succeeded in the system and understand its logic, who feel a sense of entitlement in their interactions with teachers, who have time to devote to this labor, and who have budgets that allow for various aspects of this - including for buying books, hiring tutors, cutting back on fulltime employment.

Teo, 2018

Returning to Education Minister Ong’s speech, our ‘meritocratic’ education system is clearly not providing equal opportunities when “the next generation is pushing off blocks from different starting points, and student from affluent families have a head start” (Ong, 2018). In an article for the Straits Times, Irene Y. H. Ng documents how “Singapore’s educational system may be perpetuating social immobility” (Ng, 2011). Specifically, children’s earnings correlate with parents’ earnings, and parents’ education levels appeared to be the most important factor in determining the participation of their children in schools.

Where does that leave Suyati and other low-income less-educated parents? Do Teo and Suyati’s daughters truly have equal chances at succeeding? Instead, the above mentioned social mechanisms seem to perpetuate and exacerbate inequality from one generation to the next, through a ‘meritocratic’ system that seems unable to separate merit from affluence.

Unsuccessful people are undeserving?

Previously, I noted personal experiences with Singapore’s Civics and Moral Education and Social Studies classes, where I was constantly reminded of the goodness of meritocracy and how I will succeed as long as I work hard. I might then deduce with Holmesian logic that people who do not succeed obviously did not work hard. That might in turn be a small step away from thinking that low-income and less-privileged families are entirely justified in their poverty and status, and that welfare is wasted on such undeserving people. If I am successful and wealthy, that is evidence of my merit and superiority. Likewise, as an underprivileged individual living in a rental flat, I might believe that, with the unquestionable fairness of our meritocratic system, I have been deemed inferior and have no right to ask for more than what I deserve.

While somewhat satirical, these warped conclusions of meritocracy have indeed surfaced in our population. Wee Shu Min’s 2006 controversial blogpost that ended with the words “get out of my elite uncaring face” might serve as a not- too-gentle reminder of meritocratic extremism (Wee, 2006a). PAP MP Wee Siew Kim’s subsequent apology on behalf of his then-eighteen-year-old Raffles-Junior-College-attending daughter, followed up with a controversial claim that “some people cannot take the brutal truth” (Wee, 2006b). More recently, in response to Channel NewsAsia’s documentary ‘Regardless of Class’ (Low, 2018), former sec- ondary school teacher Chew Wei Shan describes raw experiences with her former Raffles classmates who voiced opinions such as, “People are poor because they don’t work hard enough.” (Chew, 2018). Chew concludes her harsh exposition with an emotional piece relating her experiences as a teacher:

Children connect these imperfect dots and conclude that their fate is written in their DNA. That these academic streams are their identity. That if they succeed, it is their doing alone. That if they fail, it is all their fault.

And this is the underbelly of our glittering meritocracy. In the shadow of every Starbucks cup and violin lesson is a kid who bought and read all my literature texts even though the subject wouldn’t be offered to her stream in the next year. A kid who writes the most moving poetry in horribly broken grammar. A kid who calls me at 2am, standing on the precipice, ready to jump because he is useless and stupid.

Chew, 2018

Such conclusions are a result of a misplaced belief in meritocracy, in believing that meritocracy is an absolute judge of merit and hard work, disregarding the influence of other factors such as inherited status (see previous section) and plain luck. These twisted conclusions of meritocracy again serve to perpetuate the cycle of wealth and poverty and widen the divide between the two, by various means and methods. From the perspectives of the powerful and affluent, there might arise an inherent notion of superiority that spurs on greater success, and from the perspectives of the marginalized and poor, an internalized inferiority that limits self-realization. From the perspectives of government agents, welfare might be perceived as a criminal act that allocates precious state resources to the undeserving. From the perspectives of employers, meritocracy is a good excuse not to hire ex-convicts, the elderly, or simply people of lower qualifications.

No Better Alternative

Yet, when all is said and done, meritocracy is hard to beat. The assessment of individuals by their merit is logical, intuitive and plain common sense. I might be biased after a lifetime of Singaporean education (indoctrination?). But, if I were in a building on fire, I would want to be saved by the best firefighters as assessed by their firefighting merit. If a firefighter passed the assessment because of an affluent background that enabled more firefighting tuition, so be it.

But does meritocracy inevitably perpetuate inequality? In one of her essays, Teo You Yenn claims, “Inequality, in fact, is a logical outcome of meritocracy.” (Teo, 2018: 26). I do agree that meritocracy results in inequality at each applied instance - a school examination, choosing someone for employment or promotion. At each instance, someone is rewarded for demonstrating superior merit and by extension, others are unrewarded - an unequal outcome. However, I disagree that meritocracy is destined to perpetuate inequality in society. As my thesis, I consider Singapore’s applied meritocracy as one of the main driving forces of inequality. Instead, I believe a better implementation of meritocracy can exist, one where the child of a low-income family can have a fighting chance, one where low-income parents can work hard and break out of the poverty cycle for the sake of their children, one where past failures do not discount future successes.

Such an implementation would require a systematic examination of meritocracy, beginning with recognizing the failings of our current meritocratic system. We need to confront the problem of unequal starting lines and seek to level the playing field by boosting the bottom rather than capping the top. We need to look at the subtle consequences of the system on the mindsets and attitudes of the people. Most of all, we need to see meritocracy for what it truly is - a theoretically perfect ideal transplanted in an imperfect world.

Conclusion

In this essay, I argue that Singapore’s applied meritocracy is one of the main driving forces of inequality. I discuss the problem of unequal starting lines, which, coupled with meritocracy, leads to intergenerational immobility. I also consider the consequences of meritocracy on the mindsets and attitudes of the people, serving to conflate success with merit and failure with inferiority, thereby perpetuating both cycles of poverty and wealth.

In discussions of inequality and the downsides of meritocracy, the narrative is often that of the helpless low-income victim, neglected by powerful high-income elitists. But recall that Singapore often ranks poorly on happiness indexes (Helliwell et. al., 2018) and that this unhappiness, in contrast to wealth, appears to be relatively well-distributed amongst everyone in Singapore. Teo You Yenn explains that with meritocracy and inequality, there is a price “paid not just by the very low-income but also by people higher on the income spectrum, who recognize and fear that there is a lot to lose in even a little downward mobility” (Teo, 2018: 32). In other words, the inequality problem is not a poor people problem, nor a rich people problem. In spite of what many Singaporeans like to quip, it is not a government problem. It is our problem, a problem of us, and how we live with each other.

References

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