The Kway Teow Man has, in recent days, written two pieces separately on social mobility and university education, and they are certainly on my list of recommended reads because these two pieces are pretty comprehensive in drawing out different dimensions to the respective issues.

KTM has stated that he doesn’t have an answer to the problems of social mobility and university places. If I read him correctly, he doesn’t seem to know why people are unhappy when they are not moving up the social ladder (or perhaps not moving up fast enough) and why people (and their parents) are upset when they fail to secure a place in university.

My humble answer on the twin problems? Changing expectations. To paraphrase my dad, he often tells me that last time (some 30 years ago), when someone obtains 5 “O” level passes, he/she basically the talk of the entire village and viewed as some mini-genius. It’s 5 “O” level PASSES, not distinctions. And, back then, many people drop out of school because they were too poor to pay school fees. One can imagine how many people actually manage to get some basic education then.

These days, some people cry if they get 10 A1s and not 11 A1s for “O” levels (ok, I might be exaggerating here). People’s expectations have clearly shifted upwards. What are the reasons for the change? There are probably a myriad of factors, from rising affluence to better education policies. I don’t know for sure what has caused rising expectations, but I think I should be pretty accurate in saying that the average Singaporean’s expectation of lifestyle and life opportunities have increased. So, when they don’t get a place in university or they are unable to get either their car or condominium, they become unhappy.

Is there a solution? Perhaps not. Unless the scientists can identity some gene that causes human beings to develop expectations and remove that gene from the human body, I think we just have to live with having expectations. It might not exactly be the best of things to live with because expectations usually grow over time, and feeding increasing expectations can be expensive business. How much to feed is really a judgement call.

It’s really one of those damn if you do, and damn if you don’t things. I don’t envy politicians sometimes.