So I decided to give my little nook a little bit more style by giving it its on favicon. (That’s the little icon that pops up next to the URL on most browsers.) Isn’t it cool? I adapted the picture from NASA’s press release of June 30, announcing the discovery of an extrasolar planet with an unusually large rocky core.

Also decided to give this space a little bit more prominence by listing it on a few directories. (This may explain the proliferation of chiclets in the sidebar.) And stumbled upon BlogScholar, a new blog portal specifically designed for bloggers who move in academic circles. This is interesting in its own right, because the very question of whether academics should or should not blog has been a recurring question that has been brought up on several blogs that I subscribe to (I was going to say monitor, but that sounded far too sinister), and as far as I can tell never did quite see any sign of definitive resolution. And it essentially boils down to that delicate balance between work and personal life, of what is acceptable to blab out loud and what should be kept as gentlemen’s secrets, as they were. And in professions such as academia, where reputation pretty much makes or breaks your career, any misstep could become a permanent break in climbing the career ladder. BlogScholar has a fine collection of articles on the issue of academic blogging, as do several other websites. (Google knows.)

Which segues nicely into the context of the discussions of academic meritocracy, which until very recently were of much interest in recent days on the more serious Singapore blogs. The recent flurry of interest appears to be motivated by a letter by one See Sze Meng addressed to the Straits Times Forum on June 28; in which, he claimed that over three-quarters of his fellow Singaporeans in Stanford lived in private housing, and hence by induction belonged to the more affluent classes of Singapore society. Earning a mention in Simon World’s Daily Linkup for June 29 was Huichieh Loy’s Freakonomics-inspired analysis of meritocracy. (later elaborated) Huichieh’s comments on the Chinese Imperial meritocratic system should perhaps be read in tandem with my earlier post summarizing notes from a book by a sociologist interested in the social effects of meritocracy. The most interesting tidbit from which, I think, is that guarantors of scholars in Imperial China render themselves liable to a reduced form of whatever punishment the scholar might receive in the future, be it corporal punishment, exile, or even death! That’s one aspect of scholarship that we have (thankfully) monetized in modern contract-making.

Sze Meng, through Huichieh, also publishes his paper detailing his thesis on the social effects of the scholarship system. I find the economic analysis intriguing, although the study brings up intriguing corollaries in the context of today’s scholarship market. If I read the analysis correctly, there is an implicit notion that moral obligation of the scholar is tied to the scarcity (and hence prestige) of the scholarship award. An interesting corollary then presents itself: that if scholarships for whatever reason become less coveted, then the moral burden of scholarship must itself be lessened. If true, this presents an intriguing case of assigning economic value to moral principles. The paper also neglects to mention the subtle economic benefits of the PSC scholarship for able-bodied males, in the different discounting periods of a tertiary education before and after national service. Which of course is augmented with non-economic advantages, with subtleties such as being able have a sickly Ah Kong present at the graduation ceremony, for example. Also the paper does not mention that many scholarship agencies have rescinded their ‘name and shame’ policies since the brouhaha of 1998, with many of them quietly scrapping such policies in the early 2000s.

(As a side remark, Acidflask’s experiences with the international media suggest that the term ‘bond’ is jargon unique to Singapore, and that the notion of taking up a scholarship with strings attached of a mandatory work period is a foreign concept to virtually all Americans, albeit not at all so with Saudi Arabians, Filipinos, and Thais.)

Sze Meng, on his own blog, also laments the near-universal ignorance that Singaporean students entering university have as far as alternatives to FMS (father-mother scholarship) or government scholarships are concerned. His proposal essentially calls for tertiary-level bursaries and study loans underwritten by the government.

But the economic angle is far from the only important aspect of the scholarship system. Zuco touches upon the disparity between the social engineering benefits of the scholarship system, and the needs of the scholarship agency itself. Arguably the staffing requirements of said agencies is the only (economically) rational driving factor for instituting a scholarship system, but in the past it had the additional benefit of greasing the paths of upward social mobility for a select few. Which in recent years appear to have become a very select few, indeed, as mentioned by Sze Meng: This year’s President’s Scholars all live in private housing, and quite arguably belong solidly to the upper-middle classes. Mr. Wang Zhen of Commentary Singapore also notes the classist disparity. Mr. Wang Examines Scholarship Issues and Why it worked then, & why it fails now are incisive pieces on how modern society challenges the validity of the fundamental principles upon which the scholarship system was first founded: the confluence of increased affluence and an accelerated pace of life make scholarships suddenly look like the slow train to wealth and success, rather than the iron rice bowl that gleamed so gloriously in yesteryear. And the bit about scholars biding their time is so true. Perhaps without meaning it, YJ is proving the point with his bond countdown timer script.

Part Three is a rather big letdown though. And No, I Won’t Even Charge PSC A Cent For My Brilliant Ideas, while offering sensible suggestions target specifically at PSC, is somewhat dated already and sadly sounds like a laundry list of ‘been there, done that’ suggestions. Which is probably testimony to the difficulty of the problem of fixing the system while it’s not obviously broken… yet. Suggestion One, to cut down the number of awards, already went into effect last year. They’ve trimmed their ’soft target’ intake from about 150 scholars/year to 50. The other bit , to have a scholarship aimed at graduate school for existing civil servants, sounds exactly like the existing Lee Kuan Yew Scholarship scheme. I fail to see the difference. Idea Two, to choose consciously for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, sounds very much like a bursary scheme of financial aid, albeit ‘upgraded’ in the sense that it would be just as prestigious (presumably) as a non-busaried scholarship. And with regard to Point Three, to have scholarships with reduced the bond terms, PSC has proven themselves over and over again to be very rigid about the period of bond service, that it is completely non-negotiable except via liquidated damages. And scholars at local universities already have three-year bond periods anyway. And to play the devil’s advocate, it wasn’t too long ago that overseas scholars had their bond reduced from eight to six years. And Brilliant Idea Number Four, to foster greater cooperation across scholarship agencies, is to some extent already implemented, but only in one direction. PSC scholars are advantaged over non-PSC scholars, to the extent that they have more opportunities to ‘jump ship’, to transfer to a specific statutory board if they so wished. It’s not a well-publicised feature of the scholarship, but it exists. The official channels are closing though, with PSC justifying their closure with the proliferation of specialized scholarships. And FIREFLY is perhaps an example of a scholarship that offers some diversity of choice, albeit not at the level of PSC’s Open scholarships, where the doors to practically all ministries (and several stat. boards) are wide open.

Heavenly Sword notes grimly that our academic metrics are unable to distinguish between the grades of really excellent people: as far as exam results are concerned, there is absolutely no way to tell the difference between two people, each of which obtained 4 As, 2 A1s, 2 S paper distinctions, and A1 for ECA, for example. He then points out that this quickly leads to the fallacy that since they are indistinguishable using this yardstick, then they must be truly indistinguishable and hence fully exchangable, which is obviously an unwarranted conclusion. Such a strong emphasis on exam scores ends up depressing the truly great persons, by making them feel less than desired, or even unappreciated. However, he then goes on to say:

Singapore needs to view every person who is ‘quite talented’ as an individual with potentially great contributions to make in their fields - that is, with due respect despite his youth, and with the working assumption that he may one day go really far indeed….

Which is all well and good, but what to do when you realize that the working assumption is false? Arguably, the Singapore scholarship system already does precisely this by its very existence: it’s the fast track to a successful career in public administration. It works reasonably well as long as the interests of country and individual are aligned, but how about the people that end up disagreeing for one reason or another? As pointed out above, the system is ’stuck’ with the fella. The ten-year hedge bet that the 4A2D accolate will translate into civic genius fails and the system suffers for it when people decide to just coast along and bide their time. Which is the real problem with a system that looks and feels increasingly antiquated and out of sync with the modern labour market: neither party truly wins when the bet turns out to be wrong, and both suffer for it, in ways that are hard to quantify.

I cannot help but comment, in addition, that there is perhaps a misleading tendency in the preceding articles to equate meritocracy with the concept of scholarship awards. This is far too narrow a point of view: the meritocracy does not concern itself merely with its best products, though surely they will receive disproportionate attention per capita: the whole system of meritocracy is all about separating the wheat from the chaff, but also to grade the various qualities of wheat and chaff. No doubt scholars form the apex of the meritocratic system and are in every way the star performers, but they form at most two percent of the entire school year’s cohort; one should not forget the lower echelons of non-scholar graduates, diploma holders, and everyone in between and around that contribute to the machinery nonetheless. So comprehensive as the discussions may be, they are still fundamentally incomplete by focusing very much on the issue of scholars and scholarships.

Interestingly, on the very same day as Simon World’s plug, a Malaysian blog published a very interesting email conversation involving a Malaysian living abroad who lives in revulsion at the overt racism of Malaysia’s bumiputera policy, over an exposé originally written to Jeff Ooi. Meanwhile, our neighbours up north are also dealing with the trappings of meritocracy, albeit from a very different angle. Bernama News Agency ran an article yesterday over UMNO Johor’s incredible claim that meritocracy is discriminatory. I kid you not. Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman claimed that meritocracy was hindering Malay students from performing and constituted a form of oppression by creating an unequal playing field. The fact that such unbelievable statements could be uttered in all seriousness depicts a state of affairs which one Dr. Cheah, M.D., is spot on in commenting that:

[T]he reality in this world is that there is never an even competitive field. Take a look I think top politicians have to rise up to the challenge and move away from your comfort zones. They should instead be spurring the people on with taking the challenges ahead rather than lamenting on the lack of protection.

A little more digging, by the way, uncovered Jeff Ooi’s remarkably long series on the failings of Malaysian higher education. Although recognized as a long-standing problem, the recent Malaysian debate was apparently catalyzed by the entreaties of one Dr. Terence Gomez, whose careful academic plans to go on sabbatical to the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) in Geneva were torn to pieces by an uncaring, uncomprehending bureaucracy and upper management of Universiti Malaya. Feeling betrayed and disappointed, Dr. Gomez felt compelled to quit his job at UM. (While the details differ, the parallels with a not too recent Singapore case are indeed striking. Looks like no country has a monopoly on narrow-minded administrators.)

Without further ado, Screenshot’s series entitled Higher Education in Crisis? is listed and summarized here. It goes without saying that much if this is also relevant to the Singapore situation, even if many Singaporeans (civil servants included) may not seem to realize it.
Read the rest of this entry »