Let's be practical about the rules

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Nov 30, 2010

PRIMARY SCHOOL ADMISSION

Let's be practical about the rules

I REFER to the report about primary school admission being unmeritocratic ('PSLE levels playing field: MM Lee'; Nov 13) and wonder if it is at all realistic to apply meritocracy in addressing the present rules for primary school admission.

To make admission truly meritocratic would require six-year-old applicants to take entrance exams, which only brings forward the stress of exam preparation to an even younger age.

Pure distance-based criteria for admission is not meritocratic as it allows parents with better finances to buy residential units nearer the schools of their choice.

Doing away with preferred admission for those with siblings in the school or whose parents are alumni, and deciding entry by pure balloting, is also not meritocratic as it involves no 'merits'.

And balloting's apparent fairness in allowing all applicants equal chance of entry is undermined by the undeniable fact that primary schools are not equal. It can hardly be considered fair if children in different schools enjoy uneven benefits.

Those asking for fairness should realise that this is possible only if all the schools are homogeneous, offering exactly the same thing and doing everything in uniformity.

There is no perfection in an imperfect world, and certainly the current primary school admission process should always be reviewed and improved where possible.

But changes should not be made to attain impractical goals based on a naive or biased understanding of meritocracy or 'fairness'.

Chen Junyi

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Latest comments This myth carries on to sec schs & JCs & lately has been made worse by DSA. The MOE should show statistics on the performance of DSA students. On one hand MOE insists that all schs are the same. On the other hand, DSA is practised. What does DSA imply? The same student can attain better results in a more well-known sch/JC? Posted by: mamasans at Tue Nov 30 11:06:44 SGT 2010 Conversely, send motivated students to neighbourhood schools & see how they fair after 6 yrs. They will still be top students. It is the type of students, not the schools, that affect the results. Just by sending an unmotivated student to the most well-known school does not make him a top student. This writer is having a misconception which should be corrected to avoid misleading others Posted by: mamasans at Tue Nov 30 11:00:37 SGT 2010 All primary schools are the same. Well-known schools produce good results because their students are from better backgrounds. To prove the myth that some pri schs are given better resources, make a switch of type of intake of studenhts for a few yrs. All P1 students for schs like Nanyang must be fr lower income families with uneducated parents. & see the results 6 yrs down the road. Posted by: mamasans at Tue Nov 30 10:54:33 SGT 2010 Quote: Originally Posted by vajrapani All primary schools should be provided with comparable human & material resources. No great disparity in MOE funding to schools on a per-pupil basis. Difference due to alumni, sponsors & parents for funding supplementary lessons. School fees go to school fund, not MOE. But some schools got fees unpaid year after year. Posted by: coolbeagle at Tue Nov 30 10:45:45 SGT 2010 fairness doesn't necessarily imply equal opportunity. given the inequalities in the real world, putting someone with an IQ of 140 among others of 100, for eg, or vice versa, is not fair. there's little fairness in this world, unless it means being in the same sh1t as well. and even then, it's not the same. Posted by: unewolke at Tue Nov 30 10:37:13 SGT 2010 Warning: Any user who posts offensive or irrelevant comments will be banned from this Discussion Board. » VIEW ALL (11) COMMENTS » POST COMMENTS HERE

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Let's be practical about the rules

I REFER to the report about primary school admission being unmeritocratic ('PSLE levels playing field: MM Lee'; Nov 13) and wonder if it is at all realistic to apply meritocracy in addressing the present rules for primary school admission.

To make admission truly meritocratic would require six-year-old applicants to take entrance exams, which only brings forward the stress of exam preparation to an even younger age.

Pure distance-based criteria for admission is not meritocratic as it allows parents with better finances to buy residential units nearer the schools of their choice.

Doing away with preferred admission for those with siblings in the school or whose parents are alumni, and deciding entry by pure balloting, is also not meritocratic as it involves no 'merits'.

And balloting's apparent fairness in allowing all applicants equal chance of entry is undermined by the undeniable fact that primary schools are not equal. It can hardly be considered fair if children in different schools enjoy uneven benefits.

Those asking for fairness should realise that this is possible only if all the schools are homogeneous, offering exactly the same thing and doing everything in uniformity.

There is no perfection in an imperfect world, and certainly the current primary school admission process should always be reviewed and improved where possible.

But changes should not be made to attain impractical goals based on a naive or biased understanding of meritocracy or 'fairness'.

Chen Junyi

Text size  Discuss thisEmail thisPrint this

Latest comments This myth carries on to sec schs & JCs & lately has been made worse by DSA. The MOE should show statistics on the performance of DSA students. On one hand MOE insists that all schs are the same. On the other hand, DSA is practised. What does DSA imply? The same student can attain better results in a more well-known sch/JC? Posted by: mamasans at Tue Nov 30 11:06:44 SGT 2010 Conversely, send motivated students to neighbourhood schools & see how they fair after 6 yrs. They will still be top students. It is the type of students, not the schools, that affect the results. Just by sending an unmotivated student to the most well-known school does not make him a top student. This writer is having a misconception which should be corrected to avoid misleading others Posted by: mamasans at Tue Nov 30 11:00:37 SGT 2010 All primary schools are the same. Well-known schools produce good results because their students are from better backgrounds. To prove the myth that some pri schs are given better resources, make a switch of type of intake of studenhts for a few yrs. All P1 students for schs like Nanyang must be fr lower income families with uneducated parents. & see the results 6 yrs down the road. Posted by: mamasans at Tue Nov 30 10:54:33 SGT 2010 Quote: Originally Posted by vajrapani All primary schools should be provided with comparable human & material resources. No great disparity in MOE funding to schools on a per-pupil basis. Difference due to alumni, sponsors & parents for funding supplementary lessons. School fees go to school fund, not MOE. But some schools got fees unpaid year after year. Posted by: coolbeagle at Tue Nov 30 10:45:45 SGT 2010 fairness doesn't necessarily imply equal opportunity. given the inequalities in the real world, putting someone with an IQ of 140 among others of 100, for eg, or vice versa, is not fair. there's little fairness in this world, unless it means being in the same sh1t as well. and even then, it's not the same. Posted by: unewolke at Tue Nov 30 10:37:13 SGT 2010 Warning: Any user who posts offensive or irrelevant comments will be banned from this Discussion Board. » VIEW ALL (11) COMMENTS » POST COMMENTS HERE

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Mr Chang C.L.

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