The debate surrounding definitions of meritocracy, inequality in education and society as a whole and elite school admissions was highlighted in Parliament on Wednesday.

Education Minister Ong Ye Kung delivered a speech to tackle these three tough topics that come under his personal purview.

Ong's speech, alongside others from Second Minister Indranee Rajah and Senior Parliamentary Secretary Faishal Ibrahim, form the bulk of the ministry's response to a motion on education in Singapore tabled by five Nominated Members of Parliament.

These include Mahdev Mohan, Kuik Shiao-Yin, Ganesh Rajaram, Kok Heng Leun and Azmoon Ahmad, and it reads:

"That this House recognises that a love for learning is the foundation of our future, and calls on the Government to partner with the people to ensure accessible, inclusive and lifelong education for all learners."

Here's a quick rundown of what he said about each:

First, a note on meritocracy and how it has caused greater inequality

Ong acknowledges the fact that meritocracy has paradoxically resulted in greater inequality, where children are "pushing off blocks from different starting lines".

Students from affluent families, he notes, have a head start over children in lower-income households.

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But in the government's efforts to uplift poorer families, the group that remains poor ends up facing even more difficult challenges, Ong observes. These, in turn, translate to poorer academic performance, followed by an even bigger achievement gap between rich and poor Singaporeans.

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On meritocracy-related sacred cows

Ong touched on two suggestions of sacred cows his ministry has received that it could possibly slay: imposing a quota on popular school admissions, and the PSLE.

Imposing quotas for lower-income students in popular schools

On quotas, Ong notes that in the U.S., for instance, steps were taken in various ways to moderate the fact that Asian applicants to study in local schools (public schools and elite universities like Harvard) tended to score the highest in admissions tests, to preserve ethnic diversity.

He disagrees with suggestions to do this, though, arguing that "we cannot assume that we will eventually have to do what other countries like the U.S. have done", and adding that imposing a quota for lower-income students in popular schools not only "is (not) aligned to our societal ethos" but can also be seen as patronising.

Scrapping the PSLE

For this, Ong also turned overseas for reference — in Switzerland, there is no PSLE, but students don't have a choice about where they can go; they are sent to the school nearest to their homes. But those with more money can pay for their kids to go to private school, and 7 per cent do do this.

In Hong Kong, admissions to schools are decided based on their school exam scores in primary 5 and 6, with a tool that normalises the scores from different schools across the board. Also, Ong says nearly 30 per cent attend private schools.

Should either of these be used or adapted for us? Ong said he asked a group of volunteers who tutor students from lower-income families for their take, and according to him, many said no.

"The volunteers felt that PSLE can in fact motivate students to work hard, and there are resources to support poorer students. One expressed frankly that we can complain that PSLE favours the rich, but the rich are better poised to prepare their children in whatever alternate system that is in place. Support the weaker students more, but don’t take away PSLE.

So I think this sacred cow survived for some very valid reasons. But what I think we need to do is to reduce the stakes of the examination, and there must be many ways we can do this."

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Ong's solution for this: to ensure that the system allows every student to "run a good race and finish well" — including examples like the evolving methods of teaching, increasing the number of paths people can take to higher education, and SkillsFuture.

Banning tuition & enrichment classes, redistributing resources from popular to less popular schools

Ong says he agrees that too much tuition takes the joy out of learning for a child, but banning tuition and enrichment classes will go against a philosophy that is fundamental to Singapore's education system — lift the bottom, don't cap the top.

He notes that the ministry spends the most money per student (S$24,000) on specialised schools like Crest Secondary, Spectra Secondary, Northlight and Assumption Pathway, the second most (S$20,000) on Normal (Technical) stream students, and S$15,000 per Normal (Academic) student. Others get less than S$15,000 per student accordingly.

What MOE has been doing on its end

Ong also outlined some key things his ministry has been doing in its efforts to tackle inequality that showed up as a by-product of the system's meritocratic focus over the years:

Refining its public service scholarship selection processes

Ong said the Public Service Commission (PSC) reaches out specially to students who are from lower-income families and different schools than your usual Raffles Institution and Hwa Chong Institution.

He acknowledged that in 2007, RI and HCI students clinched more than 80 per cent of these scholarships, but that number declined about 20 per cent over the decade that followed.

The PSC, he said, also refined its interview strategies to look out for the substance of a candidate's ideas and thinking as opposed to their communication skills — because, he notes, students from poorer backgrounds tend to be less articulate.

Ensuring activities traditionally only available to elite schools are now mainstream

Ong said overseas learning experiences are now available in "most schools", with schools also offering a wide variety of co-curricular activities that are usually otherwise deemed to be 'high SES' like sailing, fencing and equestrian programmes.

Having smaller class sizes

One of the perceptions people had was that because "better" schools had smaller classes, the students are naturally able to do better because the teachers were able to pay closer attention to students in need of it.

Ong said after studying findings in Hong Kong and Israel, his ministry found that the class size mattered less to the performance of students than the presence of good teachers and principals in schools.

That notwithstanding, though, Ong stated that the MOE's position is that small classes, provided that they are taught by good teachers, can be of help to students.

He also stresses that many schools already have much smaller classes — specialised schools have classes of 20, for instance, Normal (Technical) stream classes are mostly 20 students in size, or have two teachers to a class of 40.

Returning to fundamentals before evolving & changing

Ong concluded by stressing that:

• there is no contradiction between meritocracy and fairness, but we should broaden its definition to include various talents and skills, and
• there is no contradiction between reducing inequality and raising collective standards, but we should keep finding ways to lift those at the bottom instead of capping the top.

He said:

"Our education system will evolve, to be even better and keep up with the times. MOE, being entrusted with resources and policies, has a duty to initiate improvement and change, and perform the role of what Ms Denise Phua described as the system integrator. It is a challenging role but we will work together to bring about improvements and change for the better. All of us cannot fail our young, and must not fail our society."

Top photo: screenshot from Parliament video