Meritocracy in Singapore

Last time I read an article in one of the Singapore newspapers (name is censored) about academic life in Singapore. The main question of the article is ‘why Singaporeans are so competitive in terms of education?’ The answer is because the meritocracy in Singapore is very high. Referring to Wikipedia, meritocracy is defined as the implementation of advancement based upon intellectual talent. Often, advancement is determined by demonstrated achievement in the field where it is implemented. From this definition, I understand meritocracy as something that people achieve because of his/her academic performance. However, I am sure that measuring the academic performance is not only from the grades that students get in school. As we all know, there are two kinds of data analysis widely known, they are quantitative and qualitative analysis. Quantitative judgements rely on the numerical data such as grade, and qualitative judgments rely on the non-numerical data which can be taken through observation, interview, and so on.  

During my observation, most of the Singaporeans are so obsessed with grades. They study hard because they want to score very good in the exams. The lecturers also stress the exams very high to students. Some of them even give the students some strategies on how to study effectively in their module before exam. However, during the class, not many people are willing to speak. They tend to be silent even though the professor asks them something. Yeah, I think that’s Asians (a little bit stereotyping).. :p By looking at the grades only, it seems that the degree of meritocracy in Singapore is only measured quantitatively, at the expense of qualitative measurement such as process through which teacher can make judgement of the students' performance. Meritocracy makes people competitive. They study very hard since they know that they will only be honored because of their academic performance. And that happens in NUS. Believe it or not, in NUS the competition is more felt than any other places in Singapore. NUS uses bell curve to assess students’ academic performance which can also increase the sense of competition among the students.  

Talking about the hard work of Singaporeans reminds me of two people whom I happened to see when I was at the gym and the dining hall. I’ll talk about the girl I saw at the gym first before going forward to talk about the guy whom I saw in the dining hall. About 2 weeks ago I went to the gym by myself, having some running and weight lifting exercises. I was running on the treadmill after a girl suddenly came right next to me to run as well. At first, nothing could bother my attention in running until she unexpectedly took out her laptop from her bag and put it on the horseblock of the treadmill. I got surprised. I thought she wanted to run, but why she opened her laptop. I kept paying attention to what she would do with that laptop and treadmill at the same time. And…WOW!! SHE BEGAN TO RUN WHILE READING THE SLIDES FROM HER LAPTOP!! What a multitasking girl, wasn’t she? Those are the lecture slides but I didn’t know what it is about. Well, I was amazed to see her studying while exercising. It’s the first time in my life finding someone doing those 2 things at the same time. She didn’t even want to waste her time for one-hour exercise.

Okay let’s leave from this story for a while and moving to the second astonishing case. That was a guy I saw in the dining hall. One day I had dinner too late and the dining hall was so quite given the fact that most residents usually eat earlier than that. I sat in the long table which enabled people to sit on the chair parallel to me. There was a guy seating next two chairs from me. The distance between me and him was not far. I could even hear his chew. I enjoyed my meals while looking at my phone few times, until something suddenly surprised me. THAT GUY SPOKE TO HIMSELF WITH SOME HAND MOVEMENTS. I kept listening to his speech and wondering what he was talking about. Then, I realized, he was explaining his readings to himself, trying to remember what he has just studied (may be). 

Well, for this case, I think everyone agrees with me that they were studying so hard. They didn’t even want to waste time for anything else but study. Sometimes I think they are crazy, have no life, and overly study-oriented. But anyway that’s their choice. That’s what they want to do in life. To end up my writing, I'd like to address that this is merely my personal opinion as a foreigner who has never found this kind of situation in my country of origin. ^^