Why Singapore “meritocracy” isn’t meritocracy - The Temasek Review

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By Abdul Gafoor, Social Correspondent

Singapore is a strange country where everything suggested, which is contrary what the government, politicians and policy makers claim, has to be “substantiated with evidence” even though the same government, politicians and policy makers are not required to substantiate their claims with any evidence. No other country has such an idiosyncratic attitude which was introduced by Lee Kuan Yew given his background as a lawyer. He tries to make the country a court room where the rules apply to everyone except government, politicians and policy makers.

The claim that meritocracy exists is one of the various notions that PAP has successfully marketed to the people even without having gone the length to ever proving it actually exists. Other such successes include Singapore being a developed country, education system being one of the best in the world etc. However PAP has had its fair share of failures in some of its baseless claims such as in eugenics where in order to produce smart kids, graduate men should marry graduate women.

The reason why many Singaporeans want to accept this baseless claim that meritocracy exists instead of rejecting is because they are afraid to deal with the factual situation where meritocracy does not exists.

The majority Chinese are afraid that they will fall into the shallowness as the majority Malays of Malaysia. The minority Singaporean leaders are afraid that they have not responded to a situation for fifty years where their bright and smart have been sidelined.

The minority Singaporean masses are afraid to even imagine they may have been systematically marginalized in last five decades because it shatters their crystal image of their state. Furthermore since they are clueless of how to respond they rather imagine it does not exist pretty much like how a person at health risk refuses to go for a screening test because they are not sure how to cope if they are diagnosed with a condition.

I have talked to so many academics, writers and thinkers around the world and everyone tend to point out to two characteristic in Singapore which will never allow meritocracy to exist.

Firstly income inequalities across the ethnic groups. Most Singaporeans even policy makers do not seem to understand what this means. Income inequalities across the ethnic groups does not mean a Chinese, a Malay, a Tamil and an Eurasian are earning not the same dollar as lame cynical Singaporean critics will foolishly claim.

Income inequalities across ethnic groups mean, the difference in incomes across ethnic groups is too large and significant. This is too visible and obvious to deny. Given this reality, meritocracy cannot exist even if you say the highest marks get the scholarship blah blah. You will have to level the playing field before you let them compete.

With the perverse income inequalities, the minorities will not be able to achieve equivalent or better successes than Chinese masses in examinations and job interviews even though they may have the capacity and potential.

What many Singaporeans tend to naively say is that because the minorities do not achieve as much, that is why their representations in ministries, scholarships etc etc are lower than their population proportions and they claim therefore their “meritocratic” system based on “scores and results” qualify as meritocracy.

This then brings to the second reason why meritocracy cannot be existing in Singapore. The way Singapore implements meritocracy is invalid. You cannot use past “scores and results” which is the main method in Singapore used to award scholarships, jobs etc. What you instead require is past, present and future performance because meritocracy is supposed to be based on potential not past achievements.

What someone achieves in the past indeed shows his potential but what someone does not achieve in the past does not show his potential. Therefore assessments have to be based on potential and for that past performance alone cannot be used. Secondly the proper assessments must be used for to evaluate a person for the job or scholarship.

In Singapore a government scholar typically gets to become a senior military officer or police officer not because he is brilliant in military work or police work but because he scored high marks in GCE O and A level examinations and managed to complete his degree on scholarship and survived through the fast tracked career. That is not meritocracy.

Singapore employers are also extremely subjective when assessing employees. I have seen far too many non-Chinese friends applying to banks only to be rejected. The reasons the employers give are that these friends do not have relevant experience if they are crossing over from say engineering industry. However many (a large number) of Chinese friends who were formerly working as engineers have crossed over into banking industry within the same banks and same departments which rejected those non-Chinese friends.

I also have seen non-Chinese friends with business and finance degrees not even getting interviews whereas their Chinese classmates do. Almost all my non-Chinese friends from JC who got straight As in GCE A Levels are now working as teachers as they could not find employment in the industry for which they were trained for. Likewise I have seen so many non-Chinese friends who have migrated being able to secure jobs in banks which in Singapore rejected them, in industries which in Singapore also rejected them.

What is clear is employers are not giving fair and equal opportunities to minorities in Singapore. What is also clear is that assessment and evaluation of candidates for scholarship and jobs in Singapore is not consistent. Race is a factor.

For many years, there have been calls to set up a labour laws and labour courts to address this just like in any developed and civilized country. Every PAP labour minister over last 50 years have refused. The fact they refused only shows they know the above problems exists and that they are not confident in tackling them.

Singaporean politicians, policy makers and ordinary people refuse to acknowledge these realities and instead insist on imagining Singapore offers a level playing field for all races. The problem is they fail to realize they are unnecessarily creating instabilities into the country with this. A small country like Singapore despite its size does have the capacity to offer sufficient opportunities to everyone in education and jobs.

Having a kiasu attitude and creating unleveled playing fields and believing the whole system functions as a meritocracy only makes Singapore an unsafe place because social unrest will eventually be the natural outcome as proven in so many cases around the world in just the history of the last 100 years.

Part of the problem is fueled by Malaysian Chinese who want to create an impression that what exists in Malaysia does not exist in Singapore. The forms of the problems that exist in the two strange twin countries maybe different but essentially they are the same. They are two sides of the same coin.

What change is required basically in Singapore or even in Malaysia is a leveled playing field for everyone. The governments will have to work towards eliminating income inequalities across the ethnic groups.

Opportunities for education need to be created such that dreams and potential be the criteria for selection. Opportunities also need to be created for promising students who are caught in the storms and shortcomings of their family backgrounds. These opportunities should be available, accessible, universal and abundant such that should any student with potential can reach and attain them easily. Sometimes opportunities should be extended to test to even identify where the brightest and smartest are.

In terms of employment same criteria for evaluations need to be put in place. The culture of rewarding and measuring a person through relationships should be stopped. Instead workplace should be about performance and potential. Legal safeguards must be put in place to make every employer a fair and equal opportunity employer.

Courts must be there to strike fear in those employers who want to select one over the other based on instincts, relationships and subjective evaluations. None of solutions I have said is utopian. They basically are the realities that exist in the developed and civilized world.

About the Author:

Abdul Gafoor is a researcher based in the United Kingdom