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‘Parentocracy’ skewing educational playing field

Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong is right to say that meritocracy has brought opportunities and upward mobility (“Tilting the playing field for a more equitable society”; Aug 18).

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Maria Teo Bee See

Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong is right to say that meritocracy has brought opportunities and upward mobility (“Tilting the playing field for a more equitable society”; Aug 18).

Scores of lawyers, doctors and politicians who had come from the slums and kampungs of poverty-ridden Third World Singapore were on a level playing field, where meritocracy was the beacon of hope that allowed them to advance spectacularly.

But this seems less of a reality now. Though it had helped individuals such as Mr Goh at the time, meritocracy is no longer represented in its familiar form. It is the young who have experienced the discrimination of “parentocracy”.

Mr Goh speaks of setting aside the best seeds and growing them in fertile programmes, but parentocracy eliminates the possibility of obtaining the best seeds equally. The filtering process is skewed by the financial strength of an affluent family.

Mr Goh refers to Edusave as a policy that has helped retilt the playing field to a more balanced level. But in a parentocracy, the means of the affluent serve as a huge counter to Edusave contributions.

That meritocracy, a system founded on excellent principles, has morphed is not easy to remedy. But we must recognise that it is no longer useful to speak of past tales as justification for a different context now. The dialogue cannot continue to be about questioning the merits of meritocracy, either.

As society has become more affluent and stratified, the dialogue must also evolve to reflect the challenges of parentocracy and re-establish the level playing field, or at least work towards it. Edusave will not do this.

Meritocracy is a necessity. Rule over society and governance should be by the best and brightest, fought out through the fairest battles of wit and skill, which can take place in a meritocratic system. But institutions cannot remain elusive to bright minds from the lower- and middle-income families.

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