How does Singapore's meritocratic educational system unintentionally exacerbate social inequality?
Coconut Education: How does Singapore's meritocratic educational system unintentionally exacerbate social inequality?
National University of Singapore
Singapore
2021
Second Place
How does Singapore's meritocratic educational system unintentionally exacerbate social inequality?
Research Team
Naaman Tan Yong Jia
Liew Zheng Jie
Yap Pei Zhen
Wu Meng Hui
Zhu Hong Yue
Project Summary
At the heart of the NUS team's study is the question: How does a culture of meritocracy shape disadvantaged student’s academic performance, and in turn affect their social mobility?
Answering this question requires the understanding of several key issues:
1. the drivers of social inequality and mobility in Singapore and the role of education.
2. the tangible/intangible manifestations of meritocracy in everyday life.
3. the tangible/intangible manifestations of one’s socio-economic background in everyday life.
4. factors that contribute to one’s educational performance.
The team approached their analysis in three key steps: literature review, consultations with experts (such as academics from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy) followed by using a systems thinking approach to categorically organise the mechanistic relationships between meritocracy, academic performance, one’s socio-economic background and social mobility.
