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My letter.. It is still work in progress…
Suggestions welcome. I will send in this on Saturday night.

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A “pass” is not a “qualify”

I refer to “A right, not a privilege” by Mr Chen Zhaoguang.

Firstly, there are many other mediums through which education can be pursued. Pursue of education is a right, no doubt, but having a place in local Universities however, isn’t one.

Mr Chen mentioned that a having a meritocratic education system “does not mean that we cannot cater to all who qualify for university entry in a cohort”. I would like to point out that if a student is unable to get into a University, it is only because he or she does not qualify for it.

It is certainly not a fault of the University or the Government not doing enough to take in more students. Already, my girlfriend and her schoolmates have to sit on the floor during most of her lectures in NUS due to lack of seats.

I think the reason why there is so much debate about whether local University admission is an “entitlement” or a “privilege” is because many Singaporeans have a mistaken understanding about the word “qualify”.

Local Universities accepts application from anyone who passes the A’ Level. But, does that equate to “qualify”?

For example, MS KOH HWEE CHOO, who had written in to ST Forum earlier last month, mentioned that although her son “achieved four H2 A-level passes, A for GP and B for Project Work”, he was unable to get a place in the University. This shows that despite passing the A Levels, Ms Koh’s son does not “qualify” for a place among the local Universities.

In today’s highly competitive situation, having a “pass” in the examination does not mean a “qualify” when it comes to local University admission. There are also cases of students settling for a degree that they totally dislike or could not do well in, because they do not qualify for the degrees they have interests in. I agree this is cruel, and does not fairly recognize students who has non-academic interests or talents. However, this is to be expected as it is the limitation of the meritocracy system that we have all happily embraced.

When I was in Junior College, I had a hard time juggling between school work and my non-academic interests in IT and business, leading to many Fs in my examinations and threats from the school leaders about the possibilities of being retained. I ended up shutting down my websites to concentrate on the A’ Levels, and managed to “qualify” for SMU. And at what cost? Today, I am still struggling to rebuild my sites to its former more than 10000 daily visits.

My scenario could be a thing of the past, if instead of calling for more enrolments in local University, Singaporeans call for an education system that recognizes both academic and non-academic achievements equally. That way, future Singaporeans, regardless of their forte, would be able to pursue their interests much greater height with lesser obstacles.

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