Yesterday was a different country separated by the moat of time which no bridge can be built to get across. There is no going back to the time when our top schools attracted students which were representative of the broader society. Now these schools mostly have students from well to do households.
We are trying to build that bridge to the past. Some are even romanticizing it as well. I think we can try and our leaders can pass off the effort as achievement but we will not succeed. Then they will excuse their failure from no lack of trying. At best we can retard the gentrification of society which is most glaring in our schools. To reverse that would require completely upsetting the apple cart. You want to be equally poor and start all over again?
We need new thinking here but I am not in the business of even thinking about one except that I always notice we are so proud of our existing paradigm that if it cannot produce a solution then any other solution is worse, anything good only looks that way on paper. So losers which unfortunately will make the majority simply have to suck it up and accept your lot in life. This is the sort of politics that would eventually lead to the fall of the PAP.
Haven't you notice yet that meritocracy is dying in Singapore? It has been fashionable for a while already who you know is often more important than what you know. In other words Singapore is more than physically growing old.
Exactly my sentiments, meritocracy is dying when all the elites think about is propagating their privilege status of their sons and daughters. It has become worse with direct school admissions and will be more so if they tinker with PSLE system to give more discretionary admission actually..can they be trusted? I don't anymore.
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