Fairness aside, what do you say to those who are better off to pay for his/her own education, receiving aid and then perhaps breaking the bond midway just because he/she didn’t like the job? I suppose this subject has been breached umpteen times but I would like to remind you of that same probability that will re-occur time and time again.

That’s the other thing that scholarship givers must sort out.

Just as not all scholars are smart and not all non-scholars are stupid, having the grades that cut it doesn’t mean that you have a heart that’s unsurpassable in civic consciousness.

Ian: Talking about equal starts. You would be surprised, since education went compulsory up to primary level, lots of families couldn’t afford to even send their kids to primary 1. I think even currently a few of them are still “slipping through the cracks”.

And you also brought up another point that I was also thinking about: since education is so important in Spore why not make it compulsory up to Diploma level just like the US and Japan (compulsory up to high school). Its just only recently in 2003 that Spore made education compulsory but why only 6 years? A PSLE cert wouldn’t even qualify someone to wash test tubes. Sometimes some of the policies in Spore just don’t make sense.

There will people receiving aid (even as an incentive) and possibly breaking the bond and there will be someone who needs the money more than the bondbreakers do and not getting it. Now that would not be fair, would it?

I agree that we should not discriminate against rich people. My point is that we should not offer unilateral aid because we don’t want to (and there’s no need to) help those who can help themselves. Of course, even if those who can help themselves are capable enough and want a scholarship, we should give it to them as an incentive. That is only fair.

Maybe the key is to increase the number of bursaries given out or increase the amount set aside for financial assistance and review the criteria for receiving it.

Also, I would like to comment something about Singapore’s meritocracy system. It seems skewed because it seems that the children of the richer families tend to get more of the benefits than those not in that bracket. The thing is, meritocracy is about equal opportunities, but it is not an equal start. I’m not sure about your own experiences, but Nanyang Primary, Rosyth, Henry Park and a few other primary schools tend to have a higher concentration of students from well to do families and also they were the ones who produced the students who did well in the sec sch and jc years for my batch.

I was not able to go to such a primary school. I cannot remember how students are allocated to primary schools but I think geography plays a part. If you see, these schools tend to be in the richer housing estates and I think it would not be presumptuous that these schools can be considered the ‘better’ ones (though how they became to be so whether MOE allocated the better teachers there, or a stronger parent-teacher organisation or wat…is something I do not know) and so a lot of the children from the better off families have a certain head start. Let’s not talk about the ability to provide supplementary programmes which can help in the development of a child.

The key is not just providing financial assistance at the tertiary level. It we want to ensure our children all can benefit from meritocracy, then we need to give all of them an equal start. I believe that PAP kindergartens was aimed to do this, but maybe more can be done. For example, we need to get more parents interested in bringing children to libraries to read and read well, and I believe for me at least, I’ve seen the libraries getting better in the heartlands and that is a big big improvement. But a lot more of course can still be done and we all need to play a part.

I rather they fine-tune the scholarship system rather than to give free education to all. Free education for all is another blunt tool that is ineffective. Those above upper middle income group don’t need free education. However, if we make it free for all, we are stretching resources more thinly, with people who don’t really need help getting help. That doesn’t make any logical sense to me. Of course, we also want to avoid the problem of people taking 6-7 years to do a degree that they can do in 4.

Just a suggestion. Since education is so important how about Spore making education free up to tertiary level like most European countries?

And because currently meritocracy is quite skewed in Spore most of the rich end up receiving scholarships which they don’t need. At least with free education some from the lower income group can break free of their poverty cycle.

And for those who are not motivated to study just let them be. Even if its free you would still need effort in order to obtain it.