I have expressed distaste in the past regarding the direction of education that MOE is taking towards the schools. This veiled vehemence is no less intense after two years outside Singapore’s widely acclaimed education. The thing about schools today that irritates me most is the widespread proliferation of specialisation programs that is often geared towards the encouragement of early bloomers. Moreover, MOE’s policy of allowing schools to run themselves like businesses doubly encourages the creation of such programs, and now you see them popping out all over like mushrooms after rain.

The nice thing about the old system of PSLE, O-Levels and A-Levels is that even though one may bemoan the loss of valuable time and stress endured studying for such major examinations, these standardised tests are geared towards providing everyone an equal platform on which to perform and excel. An old dissenting example was that of a student who unwillingly enters a vicious cycle: doing badly in PSLE puts you in a poor school, with weak support for excelling at O-Levels, and subsequently, in even worse position to undertake the A-Levels. However, the bottom line remains that when facing the crunch, everyone has the same do or die opportunity in which they literally pit years of accumulated study and skills to the test.

IP programs, when initially realised back in 2003, broke the trend and set it apart by providing a golden opportunity for students to escape the dreaded O-Levels. Response was enthusiastic, perhaps too enthusiastic. Many welcomed the through-train, allowing them to escape a major examination, and as a bonus, exposing them to the more mature JC culture, new syllabus, and more time arising from the now-defunct need to study intensively. At such a young age of 14, it is hard to imagine that the government (and NJC) actually believes that the students will make rational decisions in choosing the IP program, a decision of which the outcome will determine the next four years of their future, and perhaps the rest of their lives. The only explanation is that MOE believes that the IP program is beneficial to all students, mainly due to the benefits of the extra half-year of non-examination. This explains their subsequent policy in encouraging all major JCs, and even some secondary schools, to enact similar IP programs.

Admittedly, having the extra half-year is invaluable. Instead of struggling through mundane homework and repetitive questions, students now get the opportunity to engage in activities like research or extra co-curricular activities without unnecessary worry for school results. Schools themselves are able to fit in lessons that are more experimental in nature, rather than be compelled to schedule remedial lessons for poor performers and leave less time and focus for other educational sectors that may be of genuine concern.

However, these advantages come at a price for the rest of the normal schooling population. When places at elite schools become reserved for privileged students, which leaves fewer seats to compete for, and less chances for practitioners of hard work to claim their just rewards. It is especially damaging for the late bloomers whose talents only emerge in their teens. This is also true for sport schools, where talents are recognised early on and consolidated in a competitive environment which pushes their sporting capacity to the maximum possible. Missing out on such opportunities is not only detrimental to a person’s development, but also spells devastation to their future, and missing out is not so much of luck and innate talent than one might be led to believe.

A study of USA youth national team players by scientists have discovered that an overwhelming majority of them are born in the earlier half of the year (January to June). In an age group or a level, students of the same age will display their physical prowess based on how well developed their bodies are, and chances are that the earlier you are born, the more relatively powerful you are physically in your youth. These ‘talents’ are recognised and developed, so those who fail to shine are cast aside, led to a vicious cycle of failure as the original set of ‘talents’ are trained to perform far better. Genetics play an important role in the growth of an individual; mental development has also been proven to grow at different rates, individually attaining maturity at differing stages of physical age. Applying this to schooling systems where streaming is done at youth, children whose mental growth are comparatively retarded suffer so much more when they end up being judged from a young age.

And judging is indeed what happens when you select students for a school. How can RJC maintain such a high standard of academia and sporting excellence? They judge you based on your academic and non-academic portfolio, all those accumulated achievements that you have gained since your introduction into the education system. They compare these records with the rest, and only select the best of the best to continue honing their reputation of excellence. When they do this comparison, they judge you from young. In such a system, hard work is not a guarantee for success as genetics is inevitably involved.

Yet, how will we be able to improve on such a system? Alternatives are few, as the nation demands and require a substantial pool of talent from which to draw from, and building such a talent pool will logically require you to categorise students in terms of ability, genetics and character, leading to the formation of elite schools. The IP program may be considered by the current ministers to be an unavoidable step of our education evolution, and the creation of science and sports schools allow talents in such areas to be nurtured and developed at a much faster rate than normal. It is all about priorities: Singapore ministers are predictably and dogmatically pragmatic, and MOE simply acted out the wishes of the authorities by implementing the system that will yield the highest economic return in the future, when the nurtured talents finally step into society. The poorer JC/polytechnic students will form the undistinguished middle class, and the ITE students will become the technical backbone for the economy.

Me, I prioritise fair competition and equal chances for all. Meritocracy is what Singapore has preached about, and enforcing the taking of a standardised examination across entire levels provides just that: fair competition. It is not fair that a DSA student way below the grade requirements of a school gets in based on sporting merits, with the dual results of unfair level of talent for top tier schools and the rejection of an otherwise qualified student from the school’s ranks. It is also not fair when students with only agreeable PSLE grades enter JC and stroll to A-Levels without too much of academic concerns, whereas other students struggle to clinch a cherished spot even for polytechnic.

I come from a background in which I was deemed an average student at best, a poor student at worst, for much of my secondary school life. Only in JC did I flourish, but by then, it was already difficult trying to play catch up to those who have had opportunities to engage in rare activities like research. The direction that MOE is taking is promising to worsen that situation. What used to be difficult may now be impossible, with schools like RJC, HCI, and NUS High School hogging all the best research slots. The same goes for sports and musical talents, and academically excellent students. A lack of a fair playing field may appear advantageous to the nation in a macro-scale, but the same view from the grassroots may be intimidating to the uninitiated, demoralising to the unprepared, and a constant struggle for the untutored.

Fair play, please.
22:00
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I have created a new blog whose purpose is completely different from the current one. While this blog specialises almost completely in the world of ideas, the other shall be a more conventional one, although it will still have a focal point, which will be on cycling. Hopefully this will give me more incentive to write a little more often.

Link here.
20:46
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As much as people like to complain these days that science is not done in a vacuum, the atmosphere of science is certainly thinner than that of law. Law is perhaps the most political vocation, second only to politics, and with that unenviable association, one must question how impartial the system of law is in asserting the vices of fellow men, and punishing them.

People do work, scientists study their fields of sciences, and thinkers theorise, but only in medicine and law do you find doctors and lawyers making a claim on practicing their respective craft. Why practice?

Law is structure of power, subjecting each and every one of us towards what the social leviathan expects, for society is, at its very base, an exclusive society which outlaws undesirables and welcomes only those that conforms to its vision of the ideal citizen. One can point to the constitution of Singapore which delineates the fundamental liberties of a person, such as the right to freedom of speech and movement, the right to practice religion and the equal protection clause, and claim that such a constitution implies that a person who, for example, harbours racial intolerance against a certain group, is someone whom the Singapore society is not going to be tolerant of. As this example shows, the power to exclude is not necessarily a bad thing if one prioritises social harmony and welcomes the propagation of what you personally deem good and evil. Law is the framework of the society, welcoming those who conforms and rejects those who refuse, the rejection of which condemns them into a vicious cycle in the dreg pits of society. It is by law that you can knit a comfortable society, for the people surrounding you are all products of the same system, bearing the same characteristic trademarks of having ‘passed’ the test of the law. We lucky ones who have been deemed acceptable by society share a certain kinship that doubly discriminates against those whom society condemns.

We may theorise that lawyers practice because their craft is that of interpretation of law into resolving conflicting issues amongst otherwise demure citizens. It is about the perfection of an art which attempts time and again to draw everyone back into the fold of idealism, forging the ideal society by hammering each supplicant into the form of the ideal citizen. At the same time, it also attempts to perfect the law by continually subjecting it to examination and interpretation; by trying cases of differing natures and forms, each case helps the law extend its reach into all niches of a society, while the law retains the vision of its originators by reference to a central Constitution of the country.

The current practice of the law centers on the concept of an impartial judge who, after listening to the gist of arguments of opposing views of a conflict, decides upon a reasoned outcome to the satisfaction of both parties. Of course, the present state of the law is much more complex than this, but stripped of its pomp and glamour, courts of law are basically an advanced form of the ancient method whereby an authority peacefully mediates the resolution of a conflict. However, as I mentioned as a precursor to the entire essay, law is not practiced in a vacuum. The concept of impartiality of a judge is just that: a concept. It is an ideal that is impractical due to the close-knit law society in which a lawyer is likely to have at least heard of his opponent before, and in which it is not unheard of for lawyers and judges to sup together before attending a hearing the very next day. Politics plays a huge part in the game. Having a judge as a friend makes a decision in your favour so much more likely than having an antagonistic judge, or worse, a judge who has external political motives that is apathetic to your cause. In this sense, the very fact that politics is allowed to taint the practice of law defeats the very basis of the system around which law is built. It underscores the impartiality of a judge to decide reasonably (or morally) who is right or wrong, but no one appears to notice or care, or maybe no one knows what other method they can possibly utilise as a viable alternative.

In an ideal scenario, the usage of the impartial judge, much like the use of an ideal judge in art, is to evaluate the moral value of a situation and decide upon its resolution. Why do I say that, when the employment of a judge is usually to decide upon the strength of arguments used by the lawyers on both sides? Is not the judge supposed to judge based on reason? It is an unfortunate truth that decisions are often made before the reasons are construed to support them. There are people who decide based on the strength of reasonability, but in real life, more often than not, decisions that we have to make are not value-neutral. Reasoning only works well in a value-neutral environment, e.g. mathematics and economics scenarios, where morals do not come into play, but when it comes to a moral or value judgment, we often rely on feelings or intuition to decide. In a court of law, it is morality that is at stake. The reasoning based on law and its many acts and sections are merely convenient tools to be used to uphold that judgment and convince the public about the validity of the decision.

It is because judges must sometimes rely on feelings that an impartial judge is an oxymoron, and this problem is worsened by the fact that they are in touch with the politics of the country. The more politically fraught a case is, the less likely a judge is able to decide impartially, for they will be influenced by pressures from their contemporaries, from the government, from the public and media. Votes and opinions can be won over by political maneuverings. In such an environment, it can be difficult to mete out true justice, however well checked the law system is.

Naturally, because the current system of law is the result of centuries of evolution from ancient mediation to present day courtrooms, it is inevitable that such problems surface. Impartial mediation by a neutral party has become an outdated means of conflict resolution the moment the impartiality is tainted by external politics. However, with no other systems of such scale available, there remains no choice but to continue with the present method. I wonder though, even if a better method is indeed proposed, will people switch over? Law has become an immense industry built around mountains of paperwork, and it remains an extremely lucrative career choice. Ultimately, this social norm might be here to stay, perhaps permanently unless a crisis surfaces that threatens the survivability of the system, as it has built up too much inertia that imposing a new system of law may be impossible.
00:21
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